About my Practice

Every osteopathic physician uses his or her own mix of techniques, often developing a very unique style of work. I mostly work with the soft tissues of the body, trying to lengthen out shortened areas and softening up areas that are thickened or hardened. If bones are displaced somewhat, working the soft tissues will help them to come back to a better position. When you work this way, helping the body to find its own way back to a more normal balance, there is often more likelihood of having that change hold.

I have an extensive background in cranial osteopathy. My training in this work began in 1979. While still in school, I spent considerable time with Lou Hasbrouck, D.O. in his office learning directly from him. Some of my original teachers were direct students of the founder of cranial osteopathy, William Garner Sutherland, D.O. Later, I studied very extensively with Jim Jealous, D.O. and many other practitioners of osteopathy.

I work with visceral and neural manipulation, using techniques developed by Jean Pierre Barral, D.O., and Alain Croibier, D.O., both French osteopaths. These techniques are especially helpful for internal organ issues and problems with nerves, nerve irritation and pain.

I went through an 800-hour training in the Feldenkrais Method®. Though I do not do dedicated Feldenkrais lessons, this way of thinking about the body informs my work every day. So often it is our habitual way of doing things that gets us in trouble. Feldenkrais was brilliant at seeing these patterns in action and teaching people to move in a different, more balanced way.

I have had a longstanding interest in diet and nutrition, having studied this area of medicine extensively since starting my practice over 35 years ago. My orientation is towards real food, meaning food that is minimally processed, with judicious supplementation where needed. All of this ties into my equally longstanding interest in functional medicine, natural hormone replacement, and exercise to promote healing.

While I make no claims about being trained in psychology, I have had a very strong interest from the beginning in how what we think and feel has effects on the body. Pain is very often connected to past physical or emotional trauma. It is often connected to habitual ways of thinking and feeling. These issues sometimes come up with work on tissues that are chronically stuck. The idea is to at least develop an awareness of the connection between how we feel emotionally and what we feel physically. They are often a single piece.

I continue to have an interest in homeopathy. Because there are a number of very good full-time homeopaths in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, I tend to limit my prescribing in this area to more acute situations.

Dr. Hruby’s Background

I grew up in south central Minnesota, and I started at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in 1970 with a Physics major. I had no idea what a physicist did all day, but that’s another story.

At the end of my sophomore year, I talked to my school advisor. Not knowing what I wanted to do, I thought that I should take a break from school for a while. He agreed, but then asked me if I had ever thought about being an osteopath. I didn’t know what an osteopath was – and didn’t ask. I left school at that point.

By the fall of 1975, my interest in natural healing had grown to be quite strong. I attended a lecture by a local physician about Ayurvedic medicine. He mentioned homeopathy in passing. Shortly thereafter, I moved to Boulder, Colorado. I went to the local bookstore and found three slim volumes on homeopathy. The woman at the bookstore suggested that I meet a doctor up the street who was a homeopath. He happened to be an osteopath as well. I saw what he did with his hands and what he did with homeopathy and I was intrigued. I thought to myself, “I could do that.”

I turned around and moved back to Minnesota, re-enrolling at the University of Minnesota in a pre-med curriculum. I finished my undergraduate curriculum in 1977 and started at the osteopathic school in Kansas City later that year. I finished my D.O. degree in 1981 and did one year of residency at an inner city hospital in Columbus, Ohio, before moving back to Minnesota and starting my practice in 1982.