Harrison Vawter DC/PM
Dr. Harrison Vawter is a DC who’s expertise is in taking a patient who is in acute, severe pain, and helping them navigate their way back into fitness by using a variety of modalities. Including MDT, FMS, SFMA, Dry Needling, Manual Therapy, Adjusting, and Functional Range Conditioning.
“Be the person you needed when you were struggling”
After finishing paramedic school when I was only 20 years old and working in a high call volume suburban EMS agency, I found myself struggling with all of the cliches I was warned about - my back hurt, my mind hurt, and all I did was work. Even though I worked in the medical field, I was not able to effectively manage my own health care. My default ‘healthy’ way to cope with the stress of work was to exercise, which eventually resulted in an injury on the job from physical fatigue. Then I was really lost - I was forced to take time off of work, workman’s comp didn’t provide a clear path to healing. and my stress skyrocketed without a healthy outlet.
Words of my mentor, “be the person you needed when you were struggling” motivated me to return to graduate school to learn how to treat the human body and fill the gap me and many of my fellow first responders fall into, between workman’s comp, rehab and sports performance.
Working in EMS and being involved in sports for most of my life, I recognized both have core principles in common - mental and physical demands under stress. With a few modifications, it is possible to treat the demands of athletic jobs like police, fire, and EMS like a sport. I created IA to navigate employee health and wellbeing, treating first responders like the athletes they are.