Harper Talks Episode 37 – Dr. Hector Martinez

Harper Talks Episode 37 — Dr. Hector Martinez (.mp3)

Alumnus Dr. Hector Martinez joins Harper Talks to discuss the love for science, education close to home, his dual duties as both business owner and principal Chiropractor at Tri-Modern Health and becoming the team Chiropractor for the Schaumburg Boomers baseball team.

Transcript

Harper Talks: The Harper Alumni Podcast
Show 37: Dr. Hector Martinez — Transcript

Brian Shelton (00:00)
I'm Brian Shelton, and you're listening to Harper Talks, a coproduction of Harper College Alumni Relations and Harper Radio. Today on Harper Talks, I'm excited to speak with Dr. Hector Martínez. He's a 2004 graduate of Harper College and is a chiropractor and owner of TRI Modern Health. Hector, join me in the Harper Media Lab in the west wing of Building D. Thanks for being here.

Dr. Hector Martinez (00:22)
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. We were just talking about the 2004, and I realized it had been that long that I graduated from Harper.

Brian Shelton (00:29)
It starts to go by quickly, doesn't it?

Dr. Hector Martinez (00:31)
Yeah, at the time, it flew by there.

Brian Shelton (00:33)
People start saying numbers out loud, and you think, oh, goodness, what happened?

Dr. Hector Martinez (00:37)
Yeah. I mean, a lot has changed, I guess, since then. Just thinking about memories that I had here, and I had a really good experience as a Harper student. So it's just great to be back here and check out to see all the good changes that Harper has made.

Brian Shelton (00:52)
That's great. It's great that you're here. I really appreciate you coming in. You grew up here in Palatine. What ultimately brought you to Harper?

Dr. Hector Martinez (01:01)
So, yeah, I grew up in Palatine here. Most of my family actually went to Harper. I have a couple of cousins that went to nursing school. I came to Harper in terms of, for me personally, just had no idea what I wanted to do. I knew Harper offered a stepping stone to, from there, pursue other things and pursue my interests. Funny enough, I actually started off as a psychology major at Harper and then switched up majors midway through. Then I ended up doing Associates in Biology. I was always interested in biology, always interested in sciences, and I think just through talking through my parents and friends, we figured out Harper was a good fit for me. We ended up doing the associate's degree from there and then moved on from there. I ended up actually going here nearby for my bachelor's after that.

Brian Shelton (02:02)
Well, I think the psychology courses probably help a lot in your current profession, yeah?

Dr. Hector Martinez (02:07)
I would say so. I would say I tell people I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a counselor. But I think when you're talking to people that are having different health concerns and pain, things like that. There's a way you want to talk to them. You don't want to scare someone for certain things. If they have certain symptoms, you always want to communicate a certain way. I do feel like that did help me with some of the courses that I had. I had some really good professors from that. I was, funny enough, I was walking through here, and I remember one of my favorite professors, I don't remember his name, was for history class, and it was right down here. I don't know what building he had.

Brian Shelton (02:46)
Building E down there?

Dr. Hector Martinez (02:47)
Yeah. Yeah. So that was a nice memory. Yeah.

Brian Shelton (02:49)
And doing some remodeling on that building right now, too. Oh, yeah. We have something in common. We're both first-generation college graduates. Was Was there a push from your family to go to school? Is that something that you felt a lot of pressure from?

Dr. Hector Martinez (03:04)
Yeah. I was born here, my parents are from Mexico. They came here, they came here. They wanted to provide different opportunities for me and for us. My dad basically said, I'm happy for you to do what you want to do. You could just work once you finish high school. You could go to college. He's like, You have to do something.

Brian Shelton (03:29)
Something, something, yes.

Dr. Hector Martinez (03:31)
I actually did both. I just started working part-time. I think there was definitely, I don't want to say a push or a pressure in a negative sense, but there was definitely like, Hey, you have this opportunity. You are interested in certain things. Why don't you pursue them? And Harper really laid that foundation for me.

Brian Shelton (03:49)
That's great. So you did Harper for two years, and then you went on to Roosevelt. And then to the National University of Health Sciences to become a chiropractor. I'm just curious, was that difficult making that transition from Harper into Roosevelt and to the other university?

Dr. Hector Martinez (04:07)
Yeah, I would say a little scary making that change. Just a little bit of the unknown. It is a big jump in terms of your time, finances, and all that. We did get some scholarships and things like that. I think for me, the biggest thing was making that jump from Roosevelt to Chiropractic school. Okay. I remember having a conversation with my dad, and my dad was like, Hey, we're so proud of you. You just finished your bachelor's at Roosevelt, and you finish Harper. Why do you want to keep going to school? And that was just probably because he didn't know. I basically said, Hey, dad, if I want to continue to pursue my career, I need to continue to go to school. Then I think that was probably one of the scariest things. I ended up staying close to home just because I wanted I wanted to stay close to family. There were some options to go out of state, but I wanted to stay in the area. I think, I don't know, sometimes you just are nervous about moving away from home. I'm really glad that I did because I made some good friendships, some good connections. Those have actually helped me now in my career as a chiropractor, having those connections and those relationships.

Brian Shelton (05:26)
Similar story. My dad really pushed me to go to college, but then when I told was going to graduate school, he's like, What do you mean you're going to graduate school? You got a degree. Go get a job. You're all done. You're done. Do something. I had a friend in graduate school whose parents told her they wouldn't help her go to graduate school because she was choosing to be poor, which I always thought was a funny way of looking at grad schools.

Dr. Hector Martinez (05:46)
I think in hindsight, it was a good decision to continue.

Brian Shelton (05:50)
Sure.

Dr. Hector Martinez (05:50)
But maybe I would have taken a different career path. I always tell my wife whenever I talk to other parents, especially in the office, they tell me, Oh, I don't know what my son's going to do or my daughter's going to do. I'm like, You have time. I'm like, People figure things out. I was older when I really figured out, Hey, I wanted to be a chiropractor. This is a career I want to take.

Brian Shelton (06:17)
It takes time to figure it out. I think there's a lot of pressure on young students these days to figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life at 18 years old. I just think that's the pressure that we really shouldn't be putting on people.

Dr. Hector Martinez (06:27)
Yeah, I agree. I I think for me, Harper really allowed me to figure things out, I would say, because I definitely agree with you. There is that pressure. Even I see that with my kids. People say, Oh, he's going to do this. He's very good with his hands, or he likes putting things together. I'm like, he's only three.

Brian Shelton (06:48)
The issue with my daughter. My daughter has always been very interested in the more liberal arts sides of things, the writing and creative stuff. And she'd always struggled at math. And all of a sudden, she's gotten very good at math. And so now she's starting to think about exploring career opportunities on that side of the world. I'm like, see, you got to chill out. You got to wait. You got to let things happen. Let yourself figure out who you are before you make these kinds of decisions. Okay, so you're a chiropractor.

Dr. Hector Martinez (07:16)
Yes.

Brian Shelton (07:17)
What is a chiropractor? Talk to me like I'm dumb, all right?

Dr. Hector Martinez (07:23)
Chiropractor is actually a really fun profession. I think it allows me to... We work with the spine, we work with neck pain and back pain and headaches, right? But it also allows me to pursue other interests. We could help people in many different ways. There's chiropractors that they just do chiropractic, they just do chiropractic adjustments. We do that. We also do acupuncture in the office, and I love doing acupuncture. We're able to treat different types of conditions that chiropractic doesn't necessarily help with, I would say, in some cases, or acupuncture has a better effect. We are able to do some Different things in terms of working with people's health and nutrition and maybe some weight loss. It allows me to really connect with other professions as well and possibly refer people out and work with other medical doctors, orthopedic doctors, and physical therapists. I would say we do focus on certain specific things, but I would say in terms of what is a chiropractor, typically people think we focus on the spine, we adjust the spine or crack the spine. But it's so much more than that.

Dr. Hector Martinez (08:29)
There are some cases where we are able to deal with certain things where they may not get to help somewhere else, and we're able to improve people's health. So I think that's really the most rewarding, that's the most fun part of the job, because someone could come in here with a problem they've had for 20 years, and we're able to improve that and improve their lifestyle, and improve their activities. They could go back and do the things that they couldn't do and live a better life overall. So I don't know if that answers your question, but I do think people, when they think about that, they just think about, oh, we're just cracking the spine.

Brian Shelton (09:06)
There's a stigma around it...?

Dr. Hector Martinez (09:07)
I would say so. There's some fear around it. Everything we do in the office is really figuring out what we could recommend best for the patient. We're here to provide and recommend what the best care and plan is for them, and then we really just let them decide how they want to proceed and move forward. Because in the end, it's the patient's health, and we're I was just there to help recommend and guide them through that process.

Brian Shelton (09:33)
How did you choose that? How did you come to be a chiropractor? How did you make that decision?

Dr. Hector Martinez (09:38)
Like I said, I was always interested in health and wellness and biology and exercise and nutrition. I used to study different things at a young age. I was seeing a chiropractor myself. Funny enough, I was actually at that time pursuing medical school. For some reason, it just didn't It didn't fit for me, so I didn't really finish pursuing it. The chiropractor was seeing, he's like, Hey, you really seem to like watching me do the chiropractic treatments on people. He's like, you could actually do other things as well. He's like, I know you're interested in exercise and nutrition. You could often incorporate these things, and I think you would have a lot of fun with it. I think his influence ended up pushing me a little bit into that direction. Then I ended I ended up going to his office doing what's called a shadowing, and I following him around, and I really was interested in it. I was a patient myself. I saw some good results with it, and I found there's a lot of things you could do. It's not just cracking, that stuff in terms of what people usually think about. Then I ended up applying to chiropractic school.

Dr. Hector Martinez (10:49)
I looked at some different schools, as I said. I looked at a school in Iowa, and again, I just wanted to stay close to home. Then I found out there was a school in Lombard. What I saw and ended up applying. And then the rest is history from there.

Brian Shelton (11:05)
That's great. That's fantastic. So you're the official chiropractor for the Schaumburg Boomers?

Dr. Hector Martinez (11:10)
Yes.

Brian Shelton (11:10)
The baseball team. So what's that entail? Is that fun? What do you do with them?

Dr. Hector Martinez (11:14)
It is a lot of fun. I would say, I think for me, one of the reasons I wanted to do it was, let's just say there's a lot of bad stuff happening, a lot of negativity. And I feel like with them ... it represents family time, fun, and being part of that, I think, was important for me. Just being part of that piece, I guess. It's been fun to take my son to games, take my family to games. And I think it's just been a really good thing for the office as well. We don't see all the players. Sometimes people think, oh, you're going to see all the players. Depending on what they need, we'll see them for different things. Maybe a shoulder, a neck issue, a knee or something like that. And we do incorporate chiropractic care. We incorporate different therapies and acupuncture as well. I did it last year and it was a lot of fun. We ended up reaching out to the Boomers and saying, hey, we're interested in doing this again this year. So this will be our second year as an official chiropractor. So really excited for it.

Dr. Hector Martinez (12:23)
We have to figure out the dates, but we may do a first pitch with them. And I think that's going to be really fun just to be out there, bring some family and friends.

Brian Shelton (12:32)
Those games are fun. We go out a couple of times. It's always a good time. It's a perfect size stadium, and you can really just enjoy yourself.

Dr. Hector Martinez (12:38)
Oh, yeah.

Brian Shelton (12:38)
It's a good time. You're not only a chiropractor, and you get into this a little bit talking about this, but you're a small business owner, right? Because it's your own practice. I'm just curious, what challenges does that represent being a small business owner as well? Because you are running in the whole thing, right?

Dr. Hector Martinez (12:55)
Sure. Having a good network relationships helps. Having mentors helps. Would not be here without mentors and relationships like that and people you could go to for advice that have been there before. I think that's, for me, very important. Keeping an open mind. And I think, setbacks happen in terms of a business. Obviously, there's COVID that happened. That was a big blow to us. I had to move office locations, which was another difficult situation for us. Your... It's your livelihood, and you're putting a lot of risk, I would say. Right. Very scary. I would say I wouldn't want to do anything else because I do think it's been challenging, scary, fun in terms of what's happened over the last seven, eight years. Challenges, I think they don't necessarily always I teach you that in chiropractic school, how to run a business. I know we did take some courses and things like that. Learning how to lead, how to manage staff has also been challenging to learn how do people work. So there's where that psychology aspect from from Harper helps. Dealing with things like decisions on finances and dealing on things on what do you do in certain situations with ...If you want to get certain equipment or, for example, do I want to be the Boomers Chiropractor, or what does that mean?

Brian Shelton (14:35)
Right.

Dr. Hector Martinez (14:36)
I think something like that as an example, it's a good idea, but what do you do with that? How do you maximize that opportunity? I think we did a really good job of doing that. But that in itself was more of a time investment and a financial investment. Those are different decisions that you have to make. And I've learned to really, and I know this is not scientific or anything like that, but trust in your gut. I've noticed that when I go against that, it doesn't always go as well. So I would say those are some different challenges or setbacks that I've had. The two biggest ones, I would say, would be the COVID when you're trying to decide, what do you do? My wife was pregnant at the time. Do you close? Do you start wearing a mask? All all these things. And then having to move office locations while trying to make another office build out while still running one location was challenging. Hiring employees has been probably another challenging and in some sense, retaining has also been.

Brian Shelton (15:48)
Again, they don't teach you that in school, right?

Dr. Hector Martinez (15:50)
No.

Brian Shelton (15:53)
It's tough. It's tough, right? It really is. There's so many parts of your job that just...

Dr. Hector Martinez (15:57)
Yeah, there is a lot. Now, I think we have a good team. We have a good staff. I think it's been more, I guess, a relief having good staff. And then I think it's just about involved with them in the process is what I noticed, and then developing them to do certain things that I'm currently doing. Not that I don't like doing certain things or don't want to, because obviously it's my business. But in some cases, you want to delegating and pass things on to your staff because people want that, I think. They want to be engaged.

Brian Shelton (16:28)
Well, yeah. And you want other people to take care of things so that you can just focus on patient care, right? That's your job, to focus on the patient. You were here recently for a Harper alumni event where you're doing mentoring. Can you tell me about that event that you were?

Dr. Hector Martinez (16:41)
Yes. It was funny if it was actually about leadership, which has a lot to do with running a business. I think it was a couple of weeks ago. There were some good questions. They were asking about, how do you deal with sidebacks? How do you deal with challenges? What is most important In terms of being a leader, what are the, I guess, the key things? I actually learned a lot. I think there was three panelists that were next to me as well. There was someone from, I think, ABC, I think. I don't remember correctly. They were just talking about what does it mean to be a leader? I think the whole premise or the whole event was revolving around leadership, which is really good to see.

Brian Shelton (17:24)
Fun to talk to students?

Dr. Hector Martinez (17:25)
Yes, it was fun to talk to students and just, like I said, reminisce and then just see where I've been. I've been in their shoes. Then you always look back and you say, What do I wish I knew when I was that age? That's what I was trying to do and saying, here's what I've learned. Here's what I wish I knew. I think I was talking a lot about having a mentor or someone you could get advice from, someone bounce ideas from, someone that's been through that often helps you go to the next level, I would say.

Brian Shelton (17:57)
I think that's so important for students to have the opportunity to have a mentor to connect with because I know my mentors that I've had throughout my career are the ones that I've always leaned on for that career and life advice that have helped move things forward. I appreciate you doing that. It's fantastic. I hope you stay involved with that. I ask every guest who's on the show the last question I ask them, and it's a very generic question, so however you want to answer is fine, but what advice do you have for current Harper students?

Dr. Hector Martinez (18:22)
What advice do I have for current Harper students? That's a tough one.

Brian Shelton (18:29)
It can be, yes.

Dr. Hector Martinez (18:32)
I would say this could be your start. I mean, we don't know where you are in your career, but keeping an open mind and always be open to learning because that's it. That is what life, you're always learning. Where you are now, how you think now will change, and keeping an open mind to that, I would say, is the biggest piece of advice because that's how you'll be able to deal with certain setbacks. Maybe there's a way you think about a setback, and then maybe you think about it in a different way in terms of, Hey, maybe, okay, this happened, but I've learned from it. I could do it different this way now, and being I would give it a stick and move or jab, whatever that thing is. If you know what I mean. (laughs)

Brian Shelton (19:22)
I do.

Dr. Hector Martinez (19:23)
I would say that's one piece of advice I would give to them.

Brian Shelton (19:27)
That's great advice. Keep an open mind.

Brian Shelton (19:29)
Dr. Hector Martinez is a Harper College graduate and the owner of TRI Modern Health. If you're enjoying Harper Talks, please subscribe. And while you're at it, rate and review us so that others might find us. Harper Talks is a coproduction of Harper College Alumni Relations and Harper Radio. Our show is produced by Shannon Hynes. This episode was edited by Cobey Pozo. Our online content producer is Matt Byrne. Our theme music was created by Aiden Cashman.

Brian Shelton (19:52)
I'm Brian Shelton. Thanks for listening.