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Hi, I'm Tom Greenwald. I'm a board certified orthopedic surgeon. I work at McFarland Clinic.
My father was a physician, and I really enjoyed seeing his practice and growing up seeing
him as a role model. So, I always thought about going into medicine, and then during
undergraduate school, I felt like that actually was kind of what God was calling me to do
with my life. And so, I went to medical school and really enjoyed it. I decided on orthopedics.
I love orthopedic surgery because it's helping people with musculoskeletal injuries, meaning
when they get some type of injury, whether they break a bone or they blow out a knee,
it can be, obviously, a very hard time in their life. So, it's a nice way of trying
to get their life back. I love orthopedic surgery because you have a variety of patients.
We work with anything from a newborn that might have a congenitally dislocated hip or
to an elderly person with a broken hip, and then we do anything in between. We can do
high-end athletes who might have a sports injury that could potentially be career-ending,
or it could be just the weekend warrior who pulls a muscle or tears an achilles tendon,
or blows out their ACL. I tell my patients that when they come to me that we're going
to answer two questions: "What's going on?" meaning what's the diagnosis, and "What do
we do about it? What's the treatment plan?" So, no matter what their problem is, those
are the two main questions that we try to answer. I love my job, so my favorite part
of my job is many. I love my patients. The people in central Iowa are tough. They're
hardworking, and they're all motivated to get better. And they typically do what I say
as far as their rehab, and so that's helpful. I have a great staff that I work with. The
folks at McFarland Clinic are all hardworking, kind people who really put the patient first.