Simon Hrobelko is the owner of My Podiatrist Canberra and the nail surgery clinic Ingrown Toenail Care. Prior to becoming a podiatrist, Simon served in the Australian Army and spent 11 years as a Crime Scene Investigator for the New South Wales Police and the Australian Federal Police.
Simon feels there are many similarities between being a CSI and a Podiatrist; both require good communication skills. You must keep gathering the evidence and asking the right questions, and everything will start to reveal itself. They call that Deductive Reasoning.
“If you’re not communicating with the patient, you’re missing out on a lot of evidence there”.
If you have any questions about this episode, contact me at tyson@podiatrylegends.com
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TRANSCRIPT (Unedited)
[00:00:00] Tyson E Franklin: Hi, I’m Tyson Franklin and welcome to this week’s episode of the Podiatry Legends Podcast, the podcast designed to help you feel, see, and think differently about the podiatry profession. With me today is Simon Hrobelko and he has a very interesting story. He is a Canberra podiatrist and he’s just recently opened up My Podiatrist Canberra and within his clinic, he also has a nail surgery clinic, called Ingrown Toenail Care. But prior to becoming a podiatrist, Simon was in the Australian army and later studied and worked as a crime scene investigator. This is going to be an exciting conversation. So Simon, welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:37] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah. Thank you Tyson. Glad to be here
[00:00:39] Tyson E Franklin: mate. When we came across each other on LinkedIn initially.
[00:00:43] Simon Hrobelko: That’s right.
[00:00:43] Tyson E Franklin: And I read your profile. As soon as I saw That you were her a crime scene investigator beforehand? Straight away. All the music played in my head. . Ah, it, all that you didn’t
[00:00:53] Simon Hrobelko: CSI were, yeah,
[00:00:54] Tyson E Franklin: I was thinking CSI straight away and I thought, , this is gonna be really interesting. And then also, so I want go through your [00:01:00] career a little bit.
[00:01:00] Yeah. And then what got you into podiatry? . You initially started in the Australian Army.
[00:01:06] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, so yeah, I joined the army after school. , as soon as I got my HSC results, I came from a strictly Ukrainian family, wasn’t sure what sort of marks I was getting, so I thought I better join the army just in case.
[00:01:20] Yeah, I went off to Canberra, joined the army, and yeah, did, I did a year full time with the army, and I did, reserves for the army, which was brilliant.
[00:01:29] Tyson E Franklin: Are you still in the reserves now? No,
[00:01:31] Simon Hrobelko: no, not nowadays. I sort of left when I joined the police,
[00:01:34] so I was a civilian with the police. So I started New South Wales Police and then later AFP.
[00:01:40] Tyson E Franklin: Okay, and that’s where the whole crime scene investigator.
[00:01:44] Simon Hrobelko: That’s right.
[00:01:45] Tyson E Franklin: What was that like? What’s it like walking into a crime scene?
[00:01:48] Is it anything like we see on TV?
[00:01:52] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, uh, not really. Not really, actually. Like, you get there, TV has to be finished in half an hour, so [00:02:00] everything’s sort of sped up. Now, like, in real life, you get there, and you’re in this thing for hours. It’s trying to find things and you know, sometimes things can be, , quite confronting, , might have blood or things like this, but yeah, you’re there for hours collecting evidence.
[00:02:15] Tyson E Franklin: Okay. So when you were doing that, did you ever watch, did you ever watch any of the crime scene investigator shows and as, and have a bit of a laugh with it? Just be like, be like a podiatrist watching a movie and all of a sudden there’s a podiatrist in there.
[00:02:28] Simon Hrobelko: Definitely. And it’d be the worst, it’d be the worst for me to have people say, Oh, on CSI, they do it like this.
[00:02:34] And you’re like, okay, that’s cool. That’s a TV show. In real life, we do it like this. But, , yeah, it’s sometimes, it’s sometimes like I watch it, but I was lucky. I got into, , forensics the year before CSI started on TV.
[00:02:48] Tyson E Franklin: Oh, right. Okay. Before it became sexy.
[00:02:50] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah. So when I got into it, no one knew what it was.
[00:02:54] So it was actually, it’s, , in the second group of civilians ever to be, uh, trained in forensics.
[00:02:59] Tyson E Franklin: [00:03:00] Okay.
[00:03:00] Simon Hrobelko: It was probably a good time to get into that field, but nowadays near impossible. If you’ve got kids or friends with kids who want to do forensics, I’d say don’t do it. But yeah, back then it was, it was good advice.
[00:03:13] Yeah,
[00:03:15] Tyson E Franklin: I had a patient come in who was a crime scene investigator as well. Oh yeah. And I remember them, Saying that when they did at university, they said that they got in really early and when it was before it became really sexy and all the TV shows started and they said exactly the same thing that it had become so popular and so many kids were doing it thinking that’s exactly what it was going to be like.
[00:03:38] Okay. I’ve got a question for you though. Did you ever watch Dexter?
[00:03:42] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, I love Dexter.
[00:03:44] Tyson E Franklin: You love Dexter?
[00:03:44] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the whole concept behind it, the forensic scientist being a serial killer as well.
[00:03:51] Really, but, but with a sense of justice too. So , not like most serial killer psychopaths who wouldn’t think it, Dexter had this sense of justice.
[00:03:59] Tyson E Franklin: He did. [00:04:00] Yeah, the dark passenger. Yeah.
[00:04:02] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.
[00:04:03] Tyson E Franklin: So that’s good. I wasn’t sure whether you had watched any of those shows or not. So you’ve watched all the CSI ones. They do move fast.
[00:04:10] Simon Hrobelko: Oh yeah. Like CSI didn’t really, I wasn’t into CSI much, but Dexter was cool
[00:04:16] Tyson E Franklin: Okay. So , why did you leave it? Were you enjoying it?
[00:04:19] Simon Hrobelko: I was for years, but I got to a point where I, I didn’t feel like I was going, like, I, I felt like I’d done that. It was like I’d been there and done that. I, , been to murder scenes, I’ve managed murder scenes, I’ve managed different kinds of scenes, and I just got to a point where I wanted something fresh, something different.
[00:04:37] And my wife had jumped from career, so she was a school teacher, went off to study and become a lawyer, so I thought, alright, it’s my turn, , I’m going to do something completely different.
[00:04:47] Tyson E Franklin: When you went from the army though, to the police force or become a crime scene investigator, what made you want to leave the army?
[00:04:53] Was it not fulfilling?
[00:04:54] Simon Hrobelko: I was only on like, I was called the ready reserves. So I had a wee contract [00:05:00] that I had to do. And a lot of my mates stayed on full time. And I loved the army. Like going over to Malaysia and stuff getting heaps of jungle warfare training and things like that.
[00:05:09] That was awesome . But , it was like an adventure. Yeah. And that’s what I thought about it. But I, I always thought, yeah, no, I wouldn’t, I wanna get into forensics or something. So I’d say, no, I’m gonna, when I get out, I’m gonna, , do forensics. So I stayed reserved for a while while doing forensics and yeah, that was cool.
[00:05:25] But yeah. I just moved on from there. I’m a little bit like that in life sometimes. I want to try the next adventure sometimes.
[00:05:33] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah, I do have a friend who was a chiropractor. I met him as a chiropractor.
[00:05:37] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah.
[00:05:37] Tyson E Franklin: Had a really successful chiropractic business. And then we were talking one day and as I got to talk to him, before he was a chiropractor, he was a firefighter.
[00:05:45] Yeah. And before he was a firefighter, he was a school teacher. Yeah. And , then he eventually, he sold his chiropractic clinics, got out of chiropractic oh wow,
[00:05:54] Simon Hrobelko: that’s very different thing.
[00:05:56] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. It just from one, I mean, just these completely different [00:06:00] careers.
[00:06:00] And I, so you’ve pretty much done the same thing. You’re in the army, in the police force, but a civilian crime scene investigation. Yeah,
[00:06:08] so. The big question is Moving into podiatry. Yeah. Well, hang on. I’ll go back a step. So what made you you see that your wife decided to do law you decided that hey, okay I’m gonna do something else too. Just to keep life interesting. How did you choose podiatry?
[00:06:27] Simon Hrobelko: To be honest, I didn’t know what I wanted to do.
[00:06:30] I knew I wanted to do something sort of health related where I was healthy and that’s all. But Podiatry, I ended up, , doing work experience with a chiro, a physio and a podiatrist, each for one day. And, and I thought, I’ll do work experience. Oh, so I rang up the different clinics and said, can I do a work experience, came in for a day, sat next to them, saw what they did for the day, and I thought, wow, podiatry is pretty cool.
[00:06:54] They do, , it’s, yeah, it’s feet and legs, but , there’s so much to it, . And I thought, oh, this could be interesting. [00:07:00]
[00:07:02] Tyson E Franklin: Myself personally, I think physiotherapy would be boring.
[00:07:05] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah. Oh, I was ready to go to my lunchtime. I was like, this isn’t for me. I don’t want to be massaging people all
[00:07:13] Tyson E Franklin: day.
[00:07:14] Ah, I know. And if it’s a big hairy dude on the bench and you’ve got to rub your fingers through, through that matting of hair,
[00:07:22] Simon Hrobelko: especially
[00:07:22] Tyson E Franklin: around his glutes, and I’m going
[00:07:25] Simon Hrobelko: nah,
[00:07:26] Tyson E Franklin: nah, that just wouldn’t work for me. So. You chose podiatry from that?
[00:07:31] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah.
[00:07:32] Tyson E Franklin: And as you were getting into it, how’d you find it?
[00:07:34] Obviously you’re still doing it, so you enjoyed it, but did
[00:07:37] Simon Hrobelko: No, I I like, I didn’t make it, I didn’t make the choice easy for myself. ’cause I was living in Canberra and where I was studying was Western Sydney in Campbelltown. Yeah, I was, I was commuting up to Sydney twice a week to go into uni.
[00:07:52] But , I took a one, one week at a time and thought, no, this is what I want to do. This is pretty cool.
[00:07:56] Tyson E Franklin: How old were you at the time when you decided to do that?
[00:07:59] Simon Hrobelko: Would have been about [00:08:00] 10 years ago, so, oh, about 33.
[00:08:02] Tyson E Franklin: Okay.
[00:08:03] Simon Hrobelko: Yep. I thought, yeah, look, I commuted up and yeah, did the classes and I thought, nah, I was a mature age student.
[00:08:11] So I guess I knew what I was giving up and I treated study like work. So I thought, well, during these hours. I’m going to be studying and, , had family at the same time, so I thought, look, I’ve got to take it serious. And yeah, it got through, which was nice.
[00:08:27] Tyson E Franklin: Were you allowed to work part time as a crime scene investigator while you were studying?
[00:08:32] Simon Hrobelko: Oh, not really. I was kind of been there and done that. To be honest, I was a bit burnt out from crime scene work. I mean, very sort of heavy kind of job.
[00:08:41] I guess, life expectancy or in the job, job expectancy is about three to four years.
[00:08:46] So after 11 years, I was like, all right, I need to change now. I need to do something different.
[00:08:50] Tyson E Franklin: Is that right? People get out that early.
[00:08:53] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, that’s fine. That’s fine. It’s, yeah, very full on.
[00:08:57] Tyson E Franklin: Is it because of what you’re seeing constantly? [00:09:00] And plus you don’t know what you’re going to see every time you go to a crime scene?
[00:09:04] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, it’s a lot of what you see. And it’s a lot yeah, it’s a lot of what you see, definitely. Yeah. But I guess, saying that too, like, I got to the point where, it might, it probably sounds fascinating to you going to a scene, but I got to the point where the scene is, it’s a lot of what you see. It was going to seem boring.
[00:09:21] It was like I could do it in my sleep. You know what I mean? Yeah, anything long enough. And, and you, , it becomes routine. It was, it was work. I guess it’s all excitement and you’re going, Oh yeah, this is cool. Rocking up a scene and there’s, the newspaper over there and you’re, you’re going in collecting evidence.
[00:09:39] , coming across who knows what, but after a while it, it can pick my day bit routine.
[00:09:46] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. And I suppose even people might say, ah, but podiatry would be the same thing. However, the person that you’re dealing with is always gonna be different and they’re alive. Yeah. So I assume when you’re going to a dead body.
[00:09:58] The personality is [00:10:00] irrelevant. So I can, I can understand it is really the same thing.
[00:10:04] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah. And that’s what I loved. I mean, the clients make our job. The conversations you get in when you treating people, but that’s, that’s what I find fascinating, like, some of the most interesting people I’ve met have been since being a podiatrist and, , that’s really cool.
[00:10:19] Yeah,
[00:10:19] Tyson E Franklin: that’s what the podcast is like too. Because when I get people on here, I know very little about my guests other than what I’ve read online. And we
[00:10:27] Simon Hrobelko: may have
[00:10:28] Tyson E Franklin: exchanged an email or message backwards and forwards, but I really don’t know what I’m going to get. And that makes it exciting. And of the 300 or whatever episode, 300 something episodes I’ve done so far, no one has really disappointed me.
[00:10:44] Yeah, it’s been great. I think maybe I’ve just know how to vet and yeah, I know how to choose my guests wisely based on what they’ve done. Plus I go into a bit of stalking through their social media profiles and you can just see, but you can see the interaction they have with people. So I’m fortunate [00:11:00] nobody has, nobody has really put me off my game.
[00:11:03] Oh, there’s one, there was one, there was one, but, but I never released the episode.
[00:11:08] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, fair enough.
[00:11:10] Tyson E Franklin: I’ve actually got about four or five episodes that have never been released.
[00:11:13] Simon Hrobelko: Oh, okay. They’re in the dark files. They’ll come out one year, will it?
[00:11:16] Tyson E Franklin: They’re in the dark files.
[00:11:17] I know, and the people are probably sitting back going,
[00:11:19] Simon Hrobelko: Oh,
[00:11:21] Tyson E Franklin: when’s he ever, is he ever going to release that? Why did he hold my episode back? Why wasn’t it released? So there’s always a, there’s always a reason. So back on to you with what you did in the past, being a crime scene investigator, I take it there’s a very step by step process of things you had to go through, you had to follow a lot of systems, you couldn’t just wing it.
[00:11:44] How have you found the, ah, the detail of probably what you had to do there, With your work today, has it been a lot of help? There’s
[00:11:54] Simon Hrobelko: a lot of similarities, I reckon. Like, you think it’s completely two different careers, but there’s a [00:12:00] lot of, like, shared skills, I’d say, between the two. I mean, think about, like, back then, I was analysing a saying.
[00:12:07] Nowadays, I’m analysing a person. The evidence that I’m collecting is, what are they saying? What am I saying? What am I doing? So it’s still like, and I think it’s right because we’re doing a lot of the critical sort of thinking skills and analytic skills. So there are a lot of similarities.
[00:12:24] Tyson E Franklin: And you’ve got to interpret the evidence that you found.
[00:12:28] You’ve got to interpret the information that you gather from a patient as well.
[00:12:31] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, definitely, definitely. And I think both of them need pretty good communication skills, so, because, , you’re talking with a patient, you, you need to win them over, really.
[00:12:42] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah.
[00:12:42] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah.
[00:12:43] Tyson E Franklin: Just out of curiosity, when you were on the, in a crime scene, were you, you were only ever gathering the evidence from the crime scene?
[00:12:51] Were you ever talking to witnesses or gathering anything from them as well, or was that purely the police?
[00:12:58] Simon Hrobelko: No, [00:13:00] sometimes Especially at the start. So, like in forensics, you don’t just jump straight into the murder scenes and you’re doing that. You start out by helping them, but you start out on the, they call them the volume crime.
[00:13:12] So the stolen cars, the breaking into scenes, that’s where, that’s where you sort of cut your teeth with. Volume crimes.
[00:13:18] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah,
[00:13:18] Simon Hrobelko: yeah, yeah. So, you go into people’s houses and you chat them to, you chat them to, the lady who’s had, her, Windows smashed and they’ve stolen her handbag and you’re going there fingerprinting that and you’re learning the skills at the, at the volume settings.
[00:13:33] Yeah. You’re interacting with people all the time. We, they used to use us for field intelligence because we’d be going in sort of plain clothes doing it and a lot of people would come and go, Oh, I think the neighbor down the street is the guy who did it. , because. I think they say the police uniform are a bit intimidated, but , when you talk to us, people are a lot happier to give you a
[00:13:56] Tyson E Franklin: bit of [00:14:00] info, so yeah, it was fun.
[00:14:06] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah,
[00:14:06] Tyson E Franklin: they’ve set this up. I can just tell they’ve set this up because of this, this and this.
[00:14:10] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been to a job, like there was one scene that I went to, and I went there and there was, I went to this job and there was this SS Commodore in the garage. It was pretty new and it was covered in mud and it had been completely smashed up down the side.
[00:14:29] And I got to the scene and the people said, Yeah I’ve come downstairs and in the garage, here’s my car. It’s completely smashed up. And it was covered in mud, completely smashed up. I don’t know what’s happened. But I’m, I’m analyzing going, okay, wait a second. This hasn’t happened to you. There’s no like glass on the ground.
[00:14:47] There’s no mud around. This has happened somewhere else. But there was no forced entry. , , they’ve used the key to get in. And then my next question eventually was, Alright, so do you have any kids? And [00:15:00] they said, Oh, I’ve got one, one 17 year old son. I went, oh, okay. And they said, oh, okay.
[00:15:07] He didn’t by chance take the car out for a spin. No, no, no, he’s a good kid. He’d never do that. So I kept analyzing the job. And then, oh, it would have been about half an hour later. 17 year old son came down and go, yeah, , it was my 17th birthday. And I thought I’d take out dad’s car and I sort of cranked it into a train.
[00:15:27] So I threw it in the back and parked it in the garage.
[00:15:32] Tyson E Franklin: Should have left it where it was. I know, I know. And done a runner.
[00:15:35] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, I know, you know, that
[00:15:38] Tyson E Franklin: was,
[00:15:39] Simon Hrobelko: that was quite like, quite obvious, I guess.
[00:15:43] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah, I was wondering with doing podiatry now, and because you see there’s podiatrists that are forensic podiatrists who get involved in that, aspect and then become witnesses for different crimes where they’ll investigate footprints.
[00:15:57] Do you see yourself doing that at any [00:16:00] stage?
[00:16:00] Simon Hrobelko: Oh, I kind of feel like I’ve been there, done that.
[00:16:04] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah.
[00:16:04] Simon Hrobelko: Like, , forensic podiatry, yeah, that’s pretty cool, but I’ve done shoe mark evidence and all that and being crime scene in the forensic world was kind of pinnacle. So I’ve always said I, when , first became a podiatrist, the Podiatry Association said, why don’t you become a forensic podiatrist?
[00:16:19] You know, we need more forensic podiatrists. And I feel like I’ve been to court, I’ve been there and done that. And I kind of was saying, well, look, I’m happy to help someone else who’s doing that because I’ve had experience in that. Yeah, I’ve been in and out of court before and done that, you know, done that a hundred times.
[00:16:40] It’s, it’s not me.
[00:16:42] Tyson E Franklin: I totally get that. It’s, well, it’s probably no different to someone who’s worked with elite sports teams before doing podiatry. Yeah. And then a lot of the times you’ll talk to those people and somebody say, Oh, you’re going to get involved in elite sports and they go, why would I want to do that?
[00:16:57] I know what that’s like. I’ve been [00:17:00] in that myself. Yeah. It’s the last place I want to go back to because it’s, it’s not exciting to him. Whereas someone who’s never done it, that sounds exciting.
[00:17:09] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah. And it would be like, I’ve found forensics exciting for years. That’s why I did it. , and I’m happy to help anyone else who is a forensic, but I trust that they want a second opinion or something or go through there.
[00:17:21] I’m happy to help that as long as I’m not one presenting it in court.
[00:17:26] Tyson E Franklin: But I suppose it is one of the things like going back to the conversation just a little bit earlier where you’re saying what you learnt being a crime scene investigator and asking questions because it’s not just. Murder cases, it’s even the high volume crimes, asking those questions now working with patients, you’re doing the same thing.
[00:17:46] You’re asking questions to get to the, the actual the root of the problem.
[00:17:51] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah. So you get a diagnosis or like, , you’re observing the patient, you send something, Hey, this doesn’t fit right. Why am I seeing what I’m [00:18:00] seeing? Is there something else going on? , I think it’s, you know, the observations that you’re saying, uh, on the people at the time and where you go with it, I guess.
[00:18:09] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. I remember the head of the podiatry department at the time, Alan Crawford, and he used to always say to us, if you ask enough questions, the patients will tell you everything you need to know.
[00:18:19] Yeah. You just got to not jump to assumptions, which same thing you didn’t do as a crime scene investigator. Right. Yeah, it’s got to keep gathering the evidence, keep asking the right questions, and everything will start to reveal itself.
[00:18:32] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, they call that, , deductive reasoning. So you’ve got to deduce what every, , the evidence that, , you’ve been presented with.
[00:18:39] So, like, I think I was reading something, 70 percent of any diagnosis is on what someone tells you. So, , I read this study I think it was a GP study that they said 70 percent of their diagnosis should be what someone tells you. So, if you’re not communicating with the patient, you’re missing out on a lot of evidence there.
[00:18:58] Yeah, and that was, that was [00:19:00]
[00:19:00] Tyson E Franklin: 70 percent you said?
[00:19:02] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah.
[00:19:03] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah, so that’s, that’s a high number. Yeah. And it is, and that’s pretty much what Alan Crawford was saying. If you ask them enough questions, they’ll, they’ll give you the whole history, and you dig a little bit further, and they’ll give you a little bit more, and you slowly just start putting all these pieces together, and it should Yeah, give you a really good idea of what’s happening.
[00:19:20] Whereas sometimes someone will get one or two bits of, they’ll ask two questions, dive in with what they think is is happening, and then they wonder why treatment doesn’t work.
[00:19:30] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah. Yeah. No, and look, I’ve probably been guilty of that too.
[00:19:35] Tyson E Franklin: I think we all have. Yeah,
[00:19:36] Simon Hrobelko: exactly. , ,
[00:19:39] Tyson E Franklin: especially, you know, when you’re a new graduate and you come out Oh
[00:19:42] Simon Hrobelko: yeah.
[00:19:42] Tyson E Franklin: And somebody says, Oh, I’ve got the, and they’re pointing, you go, I think I know what it is. And that’s, that’s why my mum used to always say to me, you can’t put a, you can’t put an old head on young shoulders. And I used to go, Oh, settle down, mum. Yeah. Like I just shake my head. [00:20:00] She used to say to me all the time, you can’t put an old head on young shoulders.
[00:20:02] And I go, I don’t want an old head on these
[00:20:04] Simon Hrobelko: shoulders.
[00:20:07] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. Yeah. I want my head to stay the way it is. But then as I got older, So you gave me some other advice that I can’t, I can’t say in the podcast, but as I got older, then all of a sudden it started to click that the longer you’re in podiatry or life in general, the more mistakes you make the more experience you get, and the more experience you get, hopefully you don’t keep making the same mistakes . And I remember saying to my mum once, I hate admitting this mum, but you were right.
[00:20:39] Simon Hrobelko: She still reminds her that now days.
[00:20:41] Tyson E Franklin: I know now she tells me, remember when I was right? Yes, yes, I do. I do recall saying that I do regrettably remember saying it to you.
[00:20:51] So, with podiatry itself, you like all aspects of podiatry. What was it that you liked about nail surgery?
[00:20:58] Simon Hrobelko: What I liked about [00:21:00] was I guess I found it the most scariest and challenging thing at university.
[00:21:04] Tyson E Franklin: Okay.
[00:21:05] Simon Hrobelko: I thought this is, this is the most challenging. This is the thing that’s scaring me the most. I want to be good at this because it was scaring everybody. I want to be good at this, so I want to immerse myself in it. So that was one of the reasons why with one of the first clinics I went to, well, the first clinic I went to.
[00:21:25] I was a clinic that did lots of surgeries. I wanted to immerse myself, and I like surgery. I like, , I like a bit of blood and gore. I think that, yeah,
[00:21:34] Tyson E Franklin: of course. Yeah.
[00:21:35] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah. And it’s even better when they’re living. So I’m moving up in the world, but yeah.
[00:21:42] Tyson E Franklin: Oh, before we go any further, I forgot to ask you that too.
[00:21:44] So, when you graduated, your goal. Searched out someone who did nail surgery a lot, that’s what you wanted to do? Or did you just Yeah, your job somewhere else First,
[00:21:53] Simon Hrobelko: like, I, I was back. I was in Canberra and I mean, we, we are desperate in Canberra, so I went, I there [00:22:00] was a few clinics. I was lucky. With all of my placements being , Western Sydney, they always gave me the Canberra placements because everyone wanted to stay in Sydney.
[00:22:08] And I said, Oh yeah, if there’s any Canberra placements, I was lucky to be able to, , have different placements. in the different clinics which was really cool
[00:22:16] Tyson E Franklin: It is one of those places. I like Canberra, been there a few times. I know it gets a bad rap, but I actually, I think it’s a nice place and I’m surprised, like I always say, when people are trying to employ another podiatrist. Yeah. And I always say, sell the sizzle. What is it? You live there for a reason.
[00:22:32] Why do you live there? That’s what you need to get across the, to the new graduates coming through. And if you can do that, because I know when I graduated. There was always a job going in Canberra and every year after there was always the same job going in Canberra and I just thought Canberra just had politicians.
[00:22:51] I didn’t realize how nice it was, uh, the area itself. Canberra
[00:22:54] Simon Hrobelko: is definitely a lot better. Like Canberra, growing up in Canberra, I [00:23:00] didn’t think the same. That’s why I needed to get out of Canberra. Yeah. , we’ve got quite a good food scene. We’ve got, lots of different places to eat, drink.
[00:23:07] Oh,
[00:23:07] Tyson E Franklin: Grease Monkey Burgers. They’re good. Yeah,
[00:23:09] Simon Hrobelko: Grease Monkey is good.
[00:23:10] Tyson E Franklin: Greasemonkey as a sponsor. If anyone from Greasemonkey is listening to this. No, they make good burgers, but it’s okay. So you’ve decided to stay in Canberra and then you loved the challenge of nail surgery.
[00:23:24] Simon Hrobelko: So,
[00:23:26] Tyson E Franklin: so how many have you done?
[00:23:27] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, probably done close to 500 surgeries.
[00:23:30] Tyson E Franklin: Okay, that’s good. I used to enjoy them.
[00:23:32] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, I’ve written about five years, so yeah.
[00:23:35] Tyson E Franklin: And that’s an area that you want to just keep building it up? Yeah. That aspect of podiatry?
[00:23:41] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I’m interested in other areas of podiatry, but , that was always the part that I enjoyed the most.
[00:23:48] Tyson E Franklin: I mentioned it to you off air and I’ve said it to people before that I’m surprised in podiatry, more people aren’t picking aspects of podiatry or niches and just [00:24:00] really driving that home and becoming one of the best known in that particular area. And I think nail surgery, if you’re in a town with 30 podiatrists.
[00:24:09] Look at them all. Who is actually putting their hand up and saying where the nail surgery place?
[00:24:13] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, and that’s what, that’s what I want to do. That’s my goal. I want to be known as, that’s my thing. The, the person to go to if you’ve got an ingrown toenail.
[00:24:22] Tyson E Franklin: When did you open, it’s only very recent, isn’t it?
[00:24:24] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, yeah. So today is day five.
[00:24:27] Tyson E Franklin: Oh, day five. So by the time this podcast comes out, which I’m releasing this one really soon, it’ll be about day 10.
[00:24:35] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, yeah. Wow. Okay, cool.
[00:24:38] Tyson E Franklin: So we’re recording this on a Friday and I’m going to release it on a Tuesday, I think. Awesome. So, I’ll be day nine.
[00:24:44] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, yeah. Wow. So
[00:24:46] Tyson E Franklin: everyone will know that this is really fresh, new information that they’re listening to. So other than the ingrown toenail sort of things, and that’s the area that you want to build up long term, what were the other aspects of podiatry that you sort of [00:25:00] really floated your boat?
[00:25:01] Simon Hrobelko: Look, I don’t mind general treatments. I love the conversation that I have with people. I mean A lot of people general treatments aren’t for them.
[00:25:09] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah.
[00:25:10] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah. For me, I love, I love hanging with some of the oldest and getting into their stories and their histories and things like that.
[00:25:18] And I find that fascinating. And I don’t mind look, biomechanicals are good to, I don’t mind a little bit of the range for the others as well.
[00:25:27] Tyson E Franklin: I always say that if there’s parts of podiatry you don’t like, just don’t do it.
[00:25:31] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah. Yeah. Find
[00:25:32] Tyson E Franklin: it, find another podiatrist that you actually get on with who does like that.
[00:25:36] Yeah. And just refer ’em across to them.
[00:25:38] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, at the moment, I’m being a new clinic, I’m happy with My Podiatrist Canberra to take whoever comes through the door. Yeah.
[00:25:48] Tyson E Franklin: Oh, no. I think when you, when you open your business initially. I think it’s, especially if it’s your first one, see everybody.
[00:25:57] Cause you don’t know, you really don’t know as it goes [00:26:00] on, as you start seeing more patients, you might think you’re like a certain thing a lot. But then you don’t know what happened. See, I used to, I used to love doing nail surgery, absolutely loved it. Did so many of them, hundreds and hundreds, just so many of them.
[00:26:15] And then this one particular day, I had this kid in who was about 12 and I’ve told the story in the podcast before, but I’m going to tell it again because it’s a good story. And did the injection, everything’s fine. I’ve never had one go, never had one not work. Yeah. 100 percent success rate. And if people don’t believe me, I’ll tell you, I’ll put my kids life on it, that I’ve never had one go bad.
[00:26:37] Yeah. Done this one on this 12 year old kid, just about to start driving the thing underneath the nail and all of a sudden he goes, Fuuuuuuuuuuuuu Oh, okay. And I’ve gone, oh, my heart just hit the floor.
[00:26:52] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah.
[00:26:52] Tyson E Franklin: Never had that happen before. Yeah. And I looked at him and said, can you feel that? He goes, yeah. No, I’m just messing with you.
[00:26:58] Simon Hrobelko: Oh, what a bastard. [00:27:00]
[00:27:00] Tyson E Franklin: Little shit. Little turd. I looked at him, and I won’t say exactly what I said, because his dad laughed, or his mum laughed when he was in the room, and I just, whoa, and I just, I went cold. I went really cold after it. Then I, I finished it, called him a little shit a few more times. He’s still laughing, he’s still laughing all the way through it.
[00:27:26] He came back. Yeah, had to go. He said, oh yeah, it’s great. I said, no, it’s a shame. I was hoping this is going to be the one that didn’t work and you were going to be in a lot of pain. But everything, everything all worked in the end.
[00:27:36] Simon Hrobelko: What a little smart arse.
[00:27:38] Tyson E Franklin: And the thing is, I know I didn’t do anything wrong. I know it was all fine. I know he was messing with me. And I did a few after and I could probably do one if I had to do one tomorrow.
[00:27:49] I could do it. But my enjoyment of doing them disappeared. Yeah, if I bumped into him, I still call him little shit. Yeah, [00:28:00]
[00:28:00] Simon Hrobelko: probably a big shit nowadays.
[00:28:02] Tyson E Franklin: Probably a bigger shit than me. Yeah. But yeah, but it’s one, that’s why I was saying I think it’s great to know or understand all the aspects because like same thing, if I’d had only had an ingrown toil clinic, that’s all I did.
[00:28:12] And that happened to me. Who I would’ve been stuffed.
[00:28:14] Simon Hrobelko: Exactly. Exactly. So yeah,
[00:28:16] Tyson E Franklin: I would’ve had to get, I would’ve had young psychological help to get over it to just get, get back on the bike . So where do you see yourself in the future? Where do you see your clinic developing as time goes on?
[00:28:31] Simon Hrobelko: Good question. I see myself growing, but I’m wary that growing too quickly.
[00:28:36] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah.
[00:28:37] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah. I don’t know. I’m still debating of where I’m wanting to go. I’ve got enough, I’ve got room now, so the clinic that I’ve bought has enough space, I’ve got three treatment rooms. Yeah. Using one considering maybe at the time being getting either a physio or nurse practitioner or someone else out of my health to take the [00:29:00] other rooms.
[00:29:00] When
[00:29:00] Tyson E Franklin: you said bought the practice, you say you bought the building?
[00:29:04] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah I did.
[00:29:05] Tyson E Franklin: Oh right, okay, yeah, so it wasn’t existing practice that you bought the podiatry clinic? No. No, so you’ve bought the building and set it all up yourself?
[00:29:13] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, yeah. Which goes to
[00:29:14] Tyson E Franklin: last week’s episode, it was about the benefits of purchasing your own premises.
[00:29:18] Simon Hrobelko: Ah, there you go. I need to listen, I need to catch up with last week’s one.
[00:29:23] Tyson E Franklin: No, but it’s good though, so you’ve pretty much, like I said, you’ve gone through your career, Army, crime scene investigator, Obviously you saved enough money to go back to uni. Did you say you’ve got children as well?
[00:29:34] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, yeah.
[00:29:35] You
[00:29:35] Tyson E Franklin: went back to uni while you had kids as well?
[00:29:37] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, it was a good way, , I thought uni in Campbelltown was a good way of having a bit of
[00:29:43] Tyson E Franklin: space from kids. Yeah, but I don’t know, like I know when I went through, the mature age students, other than I couldn’t understand why they were there because I thought they were They were close to retirement at 33.
[00:29:55] When you’re 33 look really old. Oh,
[00:29:57] Simon Hrobelko: that’s right, yeah. You know, I felt like the old, [00:30:00] the old fella. Yeah,
[00:30:01] Tyson E Franklin: but I remember all the ones that went through and they were all, yeah, I look back now, even though like, I was impressed that they were doing it at their age, but I look back now and I’m even more impressed.
[00:30:15] Because most of them were married, had children, had commitments, and here they were, while we were all just studying and drinking, they were actually studying, they had an occasional drink with us, but then had to get on with adult life.
[00:30:30] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, well, I was the same. I mean, my first degree, that’s what all I was doing was studying and drinking first degree.
[00:30:37] It was like, I’ve been there, done that, so. Second one, you know what you’re giving up when you’re doing it. So I thought, look, I don’t want to really fail on that subject because I know that I’m giving up time with family now, , having a commute and giving up income and things like that.
[00:30:52] So, yeah.
[00:30:54] Tyson E Franklin: One thing I want to finish up on, or one thing I want to talk about before we finish up was, I [00:31:00] asked you, Yeah, did you have any talking points and you said, I’m pretty flexible to be your background and transitioning podiatry, which we’ve done life lessons, but you were talking about also having a positive mindset and, and that’s just something I want to talk about before we finish up when you’re thinking positive mindset, what do you mean by it?
[00:31:23] Simon Hrobelko: Like really much a growth mindset. So I think everyone likes to do what they’re good at. And I think we see that with patients sometimes, you know, the person who comes in, who’s always doing weightlifting, they want to be doing those kinds of exercise, but they’re the ones who are needing to be doing the stretching or vice versa.
[00:31:44] We’re very good at working at what we’re good at, but I think sometimes. We need it. It’s good to be balanced in our life and working on parts of us that we’re not good at and those sort of areas as well. So, yeah, I’m very much for growth mindset and [00:32:00] life-learning.
[00:32:01] Tyson E Franklin: And what do you do for yourself in that area?
[00:32:04] What, what do you do to challenge yourself in that whole growth area?
[00:32:07] Simon Hrobelko: Well, at the moment, uh, learning small business. It’s
[00:32:13] Tyson E Franklin: fun. Business is fun. Have you got a copy of my book? I love it.
[00:32:15] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah, I do. I loved your book.
[00:32:17] Tyson E Franklin: Okay, that’s great.
[00:32:18] Simon Hrobelko: I absolutely loved your book and I was going to reread it actually. I’ve misplaced it somewhere so I’ve got to find it again.
[00:32:24] But I was it was, yeah, it was a brilliant book. There was a lot of gems in that. So, yeah.
[00:32:31] Tyson E Franklin: It’s funny, every now and then I’ll pick it up to just flick through something. Yeah. And I’ll read through the book and I’ll go, Jeez, you were in the zone when you wrote this one.
[00:32:39] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I, I, when you, when you wrote the book and when I read it, I just thought, yeah, wow, he’s got, he’s definitely got his finger on the pulse there.
[00:32:49] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. So it’s good because that one person in the UK. He gave me a one star, which still makes me laugh. Very personal too, [00:33:00] because everyone should go and find the comment because it’s, it’s very, it’s quite funny. I’m assuming it’s a guy, just the way it was written, because a woman would never be that rude.
[00:33:10] And it was so personal because he used my name twice. And I’m like, Oh, mustn’t like me. I must’ve done something wrong, but, but I agree with this whole growth mindset thing because if somebody had told me when I was in my 30s, early 30s or something that, Oh, you’ll have a podcast, even though I wouldn’t have known what that was, but I would be interviewing people or I’d be up on stage in Liverpool in front of a thousand people giving a presentation, I wouldn’t have believed him because I was terrified of public speaking.
[00:33:44] Simon Hrobelko: Oh, me too. Me too.
[00:33:45] Tyson E Franklin: So even you said this is your first podcast, isn’t
[00:33:47] Simon Hrobelko: it?
[00:33:47] Yeah, definitely. Yeah. First podcast. So yeah. Hang
[00:33:51] Tyson E Franklin: on. That’s great. Cause I’ve got some sound effects that I should hang on. Which one is it? Ah, I shouldn’t have used the laughter one. That was the wrong one. Hang on. [00:34:00] No, I didn’t tell any jokes. , oh, here we go. So this is your first podcast. You get some applause and turns up.
[00:34:09] There we go. , I don’t use the sound effects very often.
[00:34:12] Simon Hrobelko: No, they’re cool. Yeah, and you,
[00:34:15] Tyson E Franklin: ah, hang on. No. Oh, that’s, it’s cash. Say if you say something really cool, you can go, Hey, that was our money. That comment was worth it. There’s certain people who listening to this podcast who know we carry on a bit, and there’s other people who listen to it.
[00:34:29] who wait for me to just mention something about money or something tacky so that they can write a negative comment. So, for you people, there we go. That’s for you. So, Simon, have you got anything else you want to say before we wrap up? Well,
[00:34:46] Simon Hrobelko: no, not really. No, not really. This has been an awesome experience.
[00:34:48] So, no, just
[00:34:51] Tyson E Franklin: No, I want to thank you. As soon as I asked you to come on, you said yes straight away. There was a little bit of hesitation in between the lines I could read, but I’m glad you [00:35:00] said yes because I just knew it was going to be interesting.
[00:35:04] Simon Hrobelko: Thank you.
[00:35:05] Tyson E Franklin: And when I’m in Canberra, we’re going to have a Grease Monkey Burger together.
[00:35:09] Yeah, definitely.
[00:35:09] Simon Hrobelko: Feels like I’m holding you to that, so. Oh, no, definitely. And I’m thinking about coming up your way to do one of your courses as well.
[00:35:15] Tyson E Franklin: Okay, yes. So, well, if people are listening to this at the moment, the next. Today, Podiatry Business Reboot is on the 26th and 27th of July up here in Cairns.
[00:35:25] Go to my website, TysonFranklin. com. All the details are there. So thanks for mentioning that.
[00:35:29] Simon Hrobelko: No problem. Now, are you doing a course for, you’re doing a business reboot, but are you doing one for new business course?
[00:35:36] Tyson E Franklin: Well, the, the business, Bob, the business reboot. The way that it’s actually set up, it wouldn’t matter whether it’s your 20th year or you’ve just opened.
[00:35:45] The, the things that we actually go through are like the like on my website I have this model there called the Thriving Podiatry Business Model. Yeah. Everybody’s business, regardless of whether you’ve been established for a long time or you’re just starting, needs to run on that model. [00:36:00] And because without it, you just like, you could still be making a lot of money, but with the model, you’d be making more if you’re just starting out, the sooner you apply the model, the faster things will fall into place.
[00:36:12] So it was just, it’s like when I wrote the book that I look back at the book now and I go, wow, even I’m impressed with what I wrote sometimes.
[00:36:20] Simon Hrobelko: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:36:22] Tyson E Franklin: And so with the, the 12 week reboot, the way that it sort of came together when I first developed it. There were 12 people in the original group, and I was sort of, I’d had part, I had half of it put together, but the other half, I didn’t put it together until I knew who was in the group.
[00:36:40] And in the group there were people who were just starting, there’d been people who’d been there for 20 years. So as I was putting the information there, it sort of catered for everybody and it just, it just worked. But every time I’d do it. And because I’m always reading books and going to other conferences myself.
[00:36:56] I’m always taking little bits of it and [00:37:00] it’s getting better each time that I do it. So that’s the fun part. So yes, if you come up here, uh, yes, I’ll take you to the best burger place in Cairns.
[00:37:09] Simon Hrobelko: Wonderful. No, that sounds great. I’d love to.
[00:37:12] Tyson E Franklin: Okay, Simon. So thank you very much for coming on the Podiatry Legends Podcast and I look forward to talking again very soon.
[00:37:19] Simon Hrobelko: Definitely. Thanks, mate..