Dr. William J. Bonner

Dr. Shipley:
Hi this is Doctor Ryan Shipley, Director of B3 Physical Therapy, here with our awesome marketing and Care Coordinator Sofia Mantia and we will be today’s host of the Professional Spotlight Series. With us today is someone that I deeply respect and I know that you will learn from—Doctor William Bonner. He is board certified in both physical medicine and rehabilitation along with pain medicine. He’s a fellow of the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and a diplomat of the American Board of Pain Medicine. And his passion is helping people get back to movement with confidence. Welcome Doctor William Bonner.

Dr. Bonner:
Thank you, thanks for having me today.

Dr.  Shipley:
You’re very welcome. So I’d love to start with your story just to give those that are watching a little bit of a background—what made you choose this field of medicine?

Dr. Bonner:
Yeah I have a different path than maybe most do, and that physical medicine and rehabilitation is a lesser known field in the medical world. I would say a lot of people go through medical school and actually don’t even know what physical medicine and rehabilitation or PMNR as we know it really is. But my dad is a PMNR doctor, and my grandfather was a PMNR doctor, and I have four uncles who are PMNR doctors. So to me, it was kind of the only doctor I really ever knew.
Um and so I was exposed to it from a young age—you know I can remember sitting in my dad’s clinic while he did EMGs on patients. Back in the day, he had physical therapists working in his clinic back when I was a kid so to me physical therapy, treating injuries, treating pain—that was what I saw my dad do when I was a kid. And of course that influences people in every field of work and it influenced me. I played a lot of sports as a kid so I always liked orthopedics and the idea of helping people with sports injuries. And so when I went through medical school I really kind of gravitated towards PMR because I again liked the idea of helping people with function and getting back to doing the things they love that involve movement like sports. I play lots of sports myself and so to me it really just kind of—it was the family business and that it really kind of fit my interests. And so I followed the family path—I was the first I think grandchild to do so. And now I have a brother who is also a PMR doctor and a cousin who’s also a PMR doctor. So we’re the third generation PMR physicians in our family which is probably the only family who has that in maybe the world or something. So we’re trying to keep it going.

Dr.  Shipley:
That is unbelievable. Highly impressed by the family tree for sure. Yeah, yeah. I’m sure your entire family is super, super proud.
So with that said and throughout your career, is there a specific patient success story that has kind of stuck with you—you know, without any identifying info but just a moment that kind of reinforced why it is that you do what you do?

Dr. Bonner:
I mean what I always liked about PMR physicians is that the focus is on function. And so, you know, we always talked about—you know regardless of what’s wrong with somebody, can we get them back to their maximum function.
And one way I like to do that is to be a diagnostician. So I take pride in seeing really difficult cases where people will come to me with a problem they’ve had for multiple years and had all kinds of treatments and really aren’t getting anywhere. And let’s try to find what the actual underlying issue is and see if we can make them much better because we figure out what the problem actually is.
I had a patient—one who comes to mind a few years ago—who was a lady about in her 50s and she had really undergone multiple lumbar spine surgeries. I wanna say it was like three or four surgeries because she had had chronic low back pain. She had had surgery, then there was some kind of complication and underwent another surgery, and then her pain wasn’t much better and so she underwent another surgery. And we’ve all kind of seen this story multiple times and she’s on all kinds of chronic pain medications. And she gets to see me and, you know, I kind of do a full evaluation. My approach with everybody is okay, take everybody like nobody has figured them out.
Because sometimes people come in and they say I have this problem and it hasn’t been fixed and it’s been five years and it’s like well—do you really have that problem? Because if they’ve been trying to fix that problem and you haven’t gotten better, then maybe you have a different problem.
And so I try to take a step back and say okay—do we have the correct diagnosis? Because if we don’t have the correct diagnosis, then we probably can’t get the correct treatment. And so I took a step back, evaluated everything. I was actually working in a very busy clinic at the time and so it was kind of hard to step back with a patient like this and look at MRIs of her lumbar spine, her pelvis, look at CAT scans of her pelvis and her lumbar spine as well and try to get the whole picture.
And what we ended up finding out was that she had a sacroiliitis from a rheumatologic condition. So she had an autoimmune condition that was giving her a sacroiliitis which was giving her chronic low back pain. I sent her to a rheumatologist and she got appropriate treatment for that rheumatologic condition and she improved fantastically.
And so to me it’s those kind of cases that kind of keep me coming to work every day, where I really kind of like to try to dig in and figure out okay—is there something been missed here or do they really just have this problem so significant that the treatments that they’ve tried haven’t worked or what’s going on? I’m really kind of diving in and trying to be like a Sherlock Holmes of medical diagnosis for orthopedic problems at times.

Dr.  Shipley:
Very nice. So building off of that—you know sacroiliitis, low back pain situation—what kind of conditions or cases do you most frequently work with?

Dr. Bonner:
I would say the most common thing we see, just because it’s the most common thing that people deal with that shuts them down, is low back pain.
And that can be due to many different causes—we don’t have to go into all that—but basically in our clinic as non-surgical specialists—so for those who don’t know, a PMR doctor specializes in sort of non-surgical management of orthopedic conditions. So we see any type of patient with a back, neck, joint problem, tendon problem.
So very commonly we see people with sciatica in the low back, we see people with arthritis of any of the major or minor joints in the body. We see people with all sorts of tendon issues like tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow, rotator cuff problems.
And we pride ourselves on being able to evaluate these people and really determine at the outset—do you need surgical intervention? So if you came to see me, kind of the first thing I’m always thinking is does this person need surgery sooner rather than later? And many, many times the answer is no.
And then from there, where do we go with them? If they do need surgery, we refer them over to one of our orthopedic surgery colleagues for intervention. But probably 99.9% of the patients that I see in my clinic don’t need surgery for their condition. Some of them may end up getting it because they don’t get better with other treatments. But so basically, any orthopedic problem that doesn’t require urgent surgical intervention—I can evaluate that problem in my clinic.

Dr.  Shipley:
Wonderful. I love that.
As a physical therapist, you know, I’m all about more of the conservative approach and trying to regain pain-free function as conservatively as possible.
So with that said, what types of patients tend to thrive under your care? Is it more proactive patients, athletes, or certain age groups?

Dr. Bonner:
Yeah I think proactive is a good one to say. And then also I think people who aren’t looking for a quick fix.
I think sometimes people come in and they expect kind of like stick a needle in me and make me better. And it’s like I have to take a step back and say—look, I do lots of procedures, I do lots of injections every week. But you know, injections aren’t the end-all, be-all to fix a lot of these things. Especially more and more with injections of steroids or cortisone, we’re learning that these types of things are not great for you long term.
And we really wanna try to minimize those types of injections if possible and give people longer-term solutions. Because all the evidence for cortisone injections is generally that it helps for a short period of time and then the problem tends to come back—unless you fix the underlying issue.
And so I think people who are willing to be proactive, put in the work, and listen to me explain the issue so that we can figure out sort of a multimodal treatment plan—which involves sometimes an injection, so many, many, many times, almost every time good physical therapy with someone like yourself—and then sometimes some medications to temper the symptoms while we’re kind of going through the normal recovery process.
And so you know, I think sometimes there’s patients who are like, “You need to fix me now,” and I don’t think those people get along very well with me because they don’t want to hear everything else I have to say sometimes. But people who are willing to stick out the process and understand that it is a process most times to recover from orthopedic injuries—those people tend to do well with me.
And also people who like to learn, because I like to teach people about their issues. I think I spent like an hour with a lady yesterday teaching her about a problem in her low back—a spondylolysis, a fracture there—and why it gave her all the problems and it fit all of her symptoms that she had for years.
And I think her leaving with that knowledge made her understand everything happening with her and helped her understand how she’s gonna get better long term with the problem. Because to me that’s the key. I don’t want people to keep coming back and say, “I’m not getting better, I’m not getting better, I’m not getting better,” right?

Dr.  Shipley:
Couldn’t have said that better myself.
You know, I love working with the people that are excited and willing to put the work in and that understand, you know, it’s not always a smooth linear progression. You know, there’s ups and downs and it can be a bit of a roller coaster ride at times.

Dr. Bonner:
Yeah.

Dr.  Shipley:
But definitely, you know, it is—the outcomes typically are all trending in the right direction. It just takes a little bit of time to get there.
So with that said, if there’s anybody listening to this video, what are a few early warning signs or things that, you know, they may be able to look for and that they shouldn’t ignore, and signs that could prompt a visit to come in and see someone like you?

Dr. Bonner:
Yeah I think, look—in general if anyone’s having—and you know, most people we see are in pain.
Sometimes we get people who are just kind of having issues with function and we can sort out some of those things. But generally most people we see are coming in because something hurts and they don’t want it to hurt, and they want to be able to do all the activities that they normally do.
So, you know, No. 1—especially if you’re having pain that limits your normal activities or your activities of daily living—ADLs as our physical therapists call them.
And then also if you have pain at nighttime that’s waking you up from sleeping—you know, those kinds of things, we wanna get you in sooner rather than later so that things don’t get worse, and so that we can get things going in the right direction.
And also so that we can do any work-up that’s necessary to sort out if there is some etiology of this problem.
You know, there’s obviously certain things like red flag signs that we always talk about—that we really want to get you in as soon as possible.
So if you’re having pain associated with new significant numbness, new significant weakness in an extremity—an arm or a leg—if you’re having really severe nighttime pain that doesn’t change with any position.
And then sometimes in people with trauma—we obviously wanna get them in because you wanna make sure people don’t have fractures. And when people are older, they’re more susceptible to having fractures.
And so we wanna get them in sooner and get imaging sooner like an X-ray just to rule out any fractures.
But really in general if we’re not concerned about any of these red flag things—you know, just anything that’s limiting you from doing what you do in your daily life or limiting you from sleeping—like that’s something I can help with.
You know, even if it’s very minor—”Hey, you know, I think I evaluate a patient, I think you’re gonna be fine but you should go to some physical therapy to change some of your movement patterns and to do some exercises that will help you feel better long term and stop this from getting worse.”
Because we know that if you keep producing the same pain over and over again, it’s very likely to keep getting worse or it’s less likely to go away long term.
So when you’re feeling something, don’t hesitate to come see a professional who can just help get you on the right path to feeling better and getting rid of that pain.

Dr.  Shipley:
Awesome. So building off of that and, you know, from my perspective when patients maybe, you know, they ignore those warning signs—things like that for a little while before coming in—it tends to sort of extend the plan of care duration or how long it’s gonna take me, from a physical therapy perspective, to actually reach their goals.
What can happen when patients wait too long to seek care?

Dr. Bonner:
I think you nailed it right there.
The thing I see is that they tend to get worse and worse, and it just takes longer to get better.
You know, and I always explain to people that I myself had a back problem at one point with some quote-unquote sciatica and I think one of the reasons I was able to manage it so well is because as soon as it started, I knew exactly what the problem was and I knew all the right things to do to start getting the progress going in the right direction and I started immediately.
Like as soon as I had the pain, I was like—I know what that is, and I know what to do to make it better, and I’m gonna start doing that right away.
And so some people, you know, will go on for six months or a year or several years and say, “Yeah, I’ve had this pain for two to three years and it won’t go away.”
Well—what have you done for it? “I haven’t done anything.” It’s like okay, that—I mean look, some people can’t. Some people don’t have time. Some people don’t have the financial resources. And so, you know, just, you know, that’s definitely a conversation.
Look, No. 1 thing is patience. Patience in the process will help get you through it.
And the longer it’s been there—you know, I always say to people like, look, if this has been going on for three years, there’s not usually one thing we’re going to do overnight that then just makes it completely better.
That would be sort of pretty rare in our world.
And so it goes back to our other conversation before—as long as they’re willing to understand that and be proactive about kind of getting the progress going in the right direction, then a lot of times they can make great improvements.

Dr.  Shipley:
Excellent.
So if you could give one piece of advice to an individual without, you know, even doing an exam or, you know, having them even in your office yet—but what’s one step someone could take to prioritize their health even before they call your office?

Dr. Bonner:
Lift weights.
That’s it.
That’s the advice. All—you know, you can look at all the research for exercise and everything. It’s—you can do all the cardio in the world you want, and that’s great for you. But lifting weights gets you places that you can’t go with anything else unless you’re doing anabolic steroids.
And so you gotta lift weights.
You have to lift weights.
I don’t care what age you are.
If you need help starting safely, seek that help.
But you gotta start somewhere.
And you gotta lift weights.
And you gotta progressively improve the amount that you lift.
And it will work wonders for all of the problems in your body.
It helps with pain. It helps with blood pressure. It helps with diabetes control. It helps with anxiety and depression.
It’s the easiest intervention that could help with the most health problems that so many people do zero of every single day.

Dr.  Shipley:
Love that answer.
So just kind of to make it a little bit easier for any of our listeners that are interested to take action, if there is something that they believe you could help them with, what is the best way for someone to get in touch with your office to book a visit?

Dr. Bonner:
Yeah you can reach out directly on the phone—786-522-4959 is our number.
And if our team doesn’t answer, they should get back to you pretty shortly if you leave a message.
But we’re pretty available most days 8:30 to 4:30 or 5, Monday through Friday.
And happy to try to help anybody get through anything they’re dealing with in terms of these types of issues we discussed.

Dr.  Shipley:
Excellent. Thank you so much.
And for the first-time patient, what should they kind of expect during that initial visit?

Dr. Bonner:
Yeah they should expect to spend a good amount of time with me discussing the issue that they’re dealing with, being evaluated by me, me reviewing any studies that they’ve had done already, and then also discussing a thorough treatment plan.
Which usually involves good physical therapy, lifestyle and activity modification, sometimes medications like I mentioned.
I always discuss possible injection procedures for what patients are dealing with.
And then sometimes we discuss, you know, the possibility of surgery if it is more on the line.
But yeah—just a thorough evaluation and discussion.
You know, usually you’ll spend at least 30 minutes with me myself—not with anybody else—evaluating you and telling me about you as the patient.
I spend all the time with the patients myself.
I do all the documentation.
I’m very particular about all that stuff.
And I think it’s very important to helping people get the help they need and get better.

Dr.  Shipley:
Wonderful.
And just to wrap things up here a little bit—do you have any final thoughts, suggestions, anything like that for someone who may be kind of silently struggling or silently in pain, but isn’t really sure where to start with how to handle it?

Dr. Bonner:
Yeah—just go see somebody.
You know, a physical therapist can be super helpful.
I think in Florida people can go directly to physical therapy without a physician prescription.
Go see a physician.
Go see somebody that can try to help you.
You know, the other thing is—is that maybe the first doctor you see, the first physical therapist you see, isn’t gonna be the person who fixes you.
But just understand that sometimes that’s the way it goes.
In our world there’s people who are specialists in one part of physical therapy or people in my world who are really good at one procedure but maybe not super interested in another procedure.
And so, you know, just start seeking help.
And then if it’s not getting better over a course of time, or you don’t get the answers you need—don’t be afraid to change paths, you know, and seek help from somebody else.
But there are good people out there who really wanna help people get better and work really hard to make that happen.
And so don’t be afraid to go see some of those people.
That’s what you know—that’s what you do every day.
That’s what I do every day.
We come to work to try to help people feel better.

Dr.  Shipley:
Awesome.
Thank you so much for your time, Doctor Bonner.
I know those that are viewing this are definitely gonna learn a lot from it.
I highly, highly appreciate you taking the time out of your day just to share a little bit more about you and the services that you provide with us.

Dr. Bonner:
Great, thanks for having me guys.
You have a great day, enjoy your day.

Dr.  Shipley:
For those of you that watched and sat through the video here, we will link Doctor Bonner’s contact information here—that way you guys can get a hold of him if you’re interested in reaching out to him for any future visits or to get yourself evaluated if you’ve been dealing with any pain or discomfort.
So thank you all very—