Ozanne joins Waupaca Chiropractic Center
By Angie Landsverk
Dr. Tanner Ozanne is now seeing patients at Waupaca Chiropractic Center.
He joined the clinic in September after graduating in August from Logan University College of Chiropractic in Chesterfield, Missouri.
“It was a very good fit. I was looking for somewhere where I could learn more,“ Ozanne said of his decision to join Dr. Miriam Leean at Waupaca Chiropractic Center.
He said Leean sees a wide range of patients, including lots of children.
Working with families is important to Ozanne as well, and he sees a large opportunity here to also work with athletes.
Ozanne recently joined the Concerned Parents of Young Athletes Program (CPOYA).
He said it is a fairly new program.
It takes more of a functional approach to treating athletes, especially middle school and high school athletes, believing an orthopedic movement screening should be included in their preseason exams.
Ozanne is a certified athletic trainer who participated in four sports during his high school years.
He grew up in Kennebeck, South Dakota, which he described as a small town with a population of less than 300 people located right in the middle of the state.
There he played football, basketball, ran track and also did rodeo all four years. He also played high school football and ran high school track as an eighth grader.
“I was always interested in sports,” he said.
Ozanne had a few ankle sprains during his high school career and said his high school did not have an athletic trainer.
Before he became an athletic trainer and then a chiropractor, Ozanne first thought he wanted to be a civil engineer.
Following his high school graduation, he began pursuing that field by studying at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Soon, he decided to pursue a different direction – athletic training.
“I liked the architectural side,” Ozanne said of civil engineering, “but I didn’t think I wanted to do math the rest of my life.”
His interest in helping others resulted in him transfering to the National American University in Rapid City, after 1 1/2 years at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology.
The school was about five blocks away from the one he had been attending.
“A people person is more my style than sitting behind a desk doing road grades,” Ozanne said.
Switching from civil engineering to athletic training turned out to be an easy transition for him.
“I always loved sports. It was easy to step into that role,” Ozanne said.
Once he got into the athletic training program, he loved working with athletes and being to help people get better.
Ozanne had one year left in the program when he learned the school was going to lose its accreditation.
As a result, he transferred to Augustana University, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for his final year of college.
After graduating from there, he went straight to Logan University College of Chiropractic.
Ozanne became interested in chiropractic after shadowing a chiropractor during his undergraduate years.
“I loved how he worked with the athletes. He knew that the athletic trainers knew all the athletes on a personal level,” he said. “He was very open with us. I really liked that. I really wanted to see more of that.”
Athletic trainers typically continue their education, and Ozanne decided to pursue chiropractic, believing it offered a broader scope for him.
His wife, Ashley, is an optometrist and works at Sterling Optical, in Stevens Point.
They live in Plover with their three sons: 5-year-old Maddox, 2 1/2-year-old Hudson and 1-year-old Lochlan.
“We really wanted more of a Midwest feel. There was not as much opportunity in South Dakota,” he said of their decision to move to Wisconsin. “There were a lot of good opportunities for both of us that were somewhat close.”
In addition to sports, Ozanne enjoys hunting and experienced his first Wisconsin grouse hunt this year.
“I grew up liking the Packers. My wife is a Vikings fan,” he said. “I’m also a big Boston Celtics fan.”
Ozanne is accepting new patients at Waupaca Chiropractic Center and started a blog and new Twitter account for the clinic.
He likes to educate his patients, believing when they understand and know more, they are more apt to be participate in their treatment plans and heal better and more quickly.
He said the community and business owners have welcomed him to Waupaca.
“I’m very glad that I found a really great community to be part of, and I look forward to being more active in it,” Ozanne said.