As told to Taylor Colby
Dr. Jonson Yousefzadeh is owner of Direct Orthopedic Therapy and recently opened a third location in Ponte Vedra Beach.
Tell us about your newest office in Ponte Vedra Beach.
We opened our third location in the heart of Ponte Vedra Beach, in the former PGA TOUR offices at Sawgrass Village, right by Publix and Wells Fargo. We picked it because that’s where a lot of the people we already serve live, golf and spend their time.
It’s built the way we build all of our spaces. Private rooms for hands-on work, and an open gym floor with equipment that suits competitive athletes and active seniors alike. The layout supports how we actually work, which is one person with one Doctor of Physical Therapy for the full session. Dr. Cage Cramer is helping lead it, and he’s a clinician I’d send my own family to.
For a long time, people here have had to choose between a high-volume clinic that takes their insurance and high-quality one-on-one care that only works on a cash basis. You shouldn’t have to choose. We built DOT so you get the quality and the relationship without giving up the insurance you already pay for.
Tell us about your background, especially as it applies to your career.
I fell in love with basketball before I fell in love with anything else. I was taller than average but not tall. More coordinated than average but not that athletic. What I had was a family that modeled grit, so I practiced constantly and ended up playing college hoops at UNF. Somewhere in there I stopped chasing the outcome and fell in love with the process of getting a little better every day. That’s still what drives me, and it’s what drives our team.
Sports pushed me toward exercise science, because I wanted to understand how the body actually works and how to get more out of the one I had. Then came the aches and injuries every athlete collects, my two worlds collided, and physical therapy was the obvious next step. I finished playing at UNF and went straight into grad school.
The other half of my background is the restaurant business. I grew up around a big family rooted in the local restaurant scene. My dad was known to a lot of people here as Poppy, of Poppy’s Italiano in Ponte Vedra Beach, and my family still runs it today. The service standard that industry demands shaped how our clinic feels and the bar we hold ourselves to. I like to think of us as the Poppy’s Italiano of physical therapy.
What do you like best about what you do?
The body is a vehicle for living a great life. When it works, you go where you want and do what you want with the people you love. That’s what all of this is about.
The best part of the job is watching hope and confidence and energy come back to someone once they’re out of pain. That never gets old. Better still is what happens after, when we get to work on their fitness and longevity goals. Golfing well into their 80s. Traveling with confidence. Playing tag with the grandkids. Those are the transformations we’re here to guide people toward.
The other part is my team. I get to help good clinicians become great ones, and that compounds in a way treating one person at a time never could. Our approach to modern PT and longevity steps outside the box just enough to meet people where they actually are. Growth for the practice means growth and opportunity for our team, so they can build their own families in this community.
What is a typical day like for you?
There isn’t a clean one. We’re in a growth patch, so every day looks a little different. I still treat some, but most of my time goes to supporting our team, developing our people, building new programs and talking to anyone who’ll listen about modernizing PT and what better health, fitness and longevity could do for this community.
I’m a girl dad. Mila is 8, Leila is 4, and we live here in PVB, so I make it a priority to help them out the door in the morning and to be with them every evening.
Somewhere in there I try to sneak in something that fuels the body or the mind. A walk and talk on the beach with a friend or a teammate. A workout. A podcast.
Are you from this area originally, or did you settle here from somewhere else?
I grew up in Connecticut and have been in Florida since high school. Mandarin High grad, then most of my college years at UNF. Professionally I’ve moved around a little, but the bulk of that time has been right here serving people in the Beaches.
This place got hold of me fast. It’s a real community, not just a good zip code. People know their neighbors and they show up for each other. I’m building my family here and I’ve built my life’s work here, and at this point I’d have a hard time being anywhere else.
What do you like best about living here?
I can walk to the ocean, bike to a friend’s house and drop the girls at school on my way to the clinic. The family restaurant is one minute further down the road. Everything we need sits inside about a ten-mile radius, which makes a full day feel a lot less full.
I also love how active it is here. Golf, running, pickleball, biking to the beach. There’s always something going on, and always someone doing it.
How do you like to spend your free time?
I genuinely enjoy working and building what we have at DOT. There’s momentum in feeling like you’re always moving toward something worthwhile, so my wheels rarely stop turning.
But without my family, I don’t know that I’d have much fire in me. My wife Stephanie and I are in awe of our two little girls, and we’re very aware of how fast they’re growing up. Whatever they’re into, I want to be in it with them.
I still train and shoot hoops here and there, but I’m not chasing a number anymore. I’m chasing being the dad who can still keep up in twenty or thirty years.
What would you like our readers to know about Direct Orthopedic Therapy?
Mainly two things.
You probably don’t need to wait as long as you’re waiting. Most people find us after months of hoping an ache or an injury works itself out. Hope isn’t a plan, and the body keeps score, so getting ahead of it matters. A conversation costs nothing and usually saves a lot.
And we don’t stop at pain. For most people, getting out of pain is where care ends. For us it’s the start of the arc through rehab, fitness and longevity, which is a long way of saying we want you strong and capable for the rest of your life. The relationship doesn’t end because you rehabbed an injury successfully. A big part of why we came to Ponte Vedra Beach is so we can offer serious, accessible longevity programming to support your health, nutrition and training.
All of it with personalized, one-on-one care from a Doctor of Physical Therapy, using the insurance you already pay for. That last part surprises people.