Dr Glenn Pransky – one of work comp’s great ones

Recently I had the honor of meeting the nation’s foremost expert on disability – Glenn Pransky M.D.  What a wonderful gentleman.

Glenn is the Director of Liberty Mutual’s Center for Disability Research; he is an occ med physician and has his Master’s in Occupational Health as well and has authored over a hundred articles, research papers, and book chapters.  That’s all quite impressive; what really struck me is how approachable, genuine, and open Glenn is. [my use of his first name is intentional, Glenn is completely without pretension or ego.]

His passion is disability; reducing its occurrence, mitigating its impact, improving the lives of those with physical limitations.  The research Glenn and colleagues have conducted includes seminal work on low back pain’s impact on disability; age and job tenure and their relationship to disability duration; the impact of pain on disability; the effect of supervisors’ leadership on return to work for workers with back ailments.

And that’s just what he did last year; if you want to fully grasp the depth and breadth of Glenn’s work, peruse this list.

He will be the first to note that there are a lot of co-workers at the Center and co-authors and fellow researchers that have also done yeoman work, and that’s true.  But Glenn’s contribution is second to none, and its clear that his leadership, focus, and keen intellect has had a wide, deep, and overwhelmingly positive impact.

Kudos to Liberty Mutual for its foresight in setting up the Center almost two decades ago, and for continuing to support its work.  The Center’s contribution to the betterment of America’s workers, in fact to all of us, has been significant indeed. [full disclosure – I was employed by Liberty for several years back in the 1990’s.]