The best part of interviewing other doctors and students is getting to learn a little bit about them.
I thought I would post some of these answers from people I’ve interviewed up to this point.
Dr. Ray Drury - “As a student at Logan College of Chiropractic Medicine (as I once found written on their stationary) I really struggled with something my father, a full-spine chiropractor at that time, told me: “The body is a self healing organism. It doesn’t need any help just no interference.” Well this was not what I was learning at Logan.
So, in my search to figure out what chiropractic was all about, a friend recommended I go down to Atlanta to a D.E. seminar. He said it would change my life.
That was an understatement. Not only did I learn what chiropractic really was, but I met a tall, thin, gray haired man that was hollering, screaming and pounding on this black book like a southern Baptist minister. That man was Dr. Michael Kale, that book was Vol. XVIII and he was hollering about B.J. Palmer and Upper Cervical.
I had never seen anyone so passionate about anything in my life. I got enthused by his enthusiasm. At that point I knew I had to know what he knew. There’s been no looking back since.”
Dr. Tom Forest – “My uncle practiced and taught Gonstead, which was very popular at Palmer in the early 1970’s and assumed that is how I would practice. My older brother Gary drove down to DE in Atlanta with Guy “Easy” Riekeman and they both got really enthused about Upper Cervical. My brother graduated as I was starting Palmer and he had me buy up all the BJ green books and pamphlets (many sold for 50 cents to 5 dollars). UC wasn’t very popular then. I started getting enthused about Upper Cervical. I really didn’t set any Palmer clinic records as I barely finished my minimum requirements of adjustments on the very last day!
I set up in practice three days a week with my brother in San Leandro, CA (next to Oakland) and three days in SF with an old time HIO doc.
I started practice in Pleasanton, CA in 1975 using classic HIO but was having many sleepless nights with the patients who were NOT responding. I really believed in the philosophy but wasn’t seeing the results the philosophy promised.
While on the board of ICAC (ICA of California) I was introduced to to Upper Cervical giants Drs. Stephen Duff, Sr., Dan Kuhn, Clarence Jensen, and Weldon Muncy (all Palmer grads who wanted BJ’s vision perpetuated).
Dr. Muncy discussed the Blair technique with me. I’d had a brief two day intro to the method while at Palmer. I flew to LA and took a 5 day program with Dr. Blair. The whole concept that the right half and the left half of the vertebrae never match (take a look at BJ’s osteological collection) made sense. The upper half and lower half of the articulations do match (like halves of a peanut shell). Thus Dr. Blair stated, “If misalignments take place at the articulations, why not x-ray the articulations?”
Thus, I started the journey of 3-D and C-0-1 protractoview x-rays and the unique torque correction to reposition the atlas.”
Dr. Jon Schwartzbauer - “I learned about upper cervical chiropractic from the education and care that I received as a student here at Sherman College. Sherman has a number of classes in the core curriculum dedicated to educating our students about UC care. Also, my intern practiced upper cervical exclusively on me in our health center so I was able to experience this kind of care from that perspective.”
Dr. Adam Tanase - “When I started at Logan, we had to pick our roommates from a “share list” of incoming students. Out of the 50-60 names on the list, I picked the one whose dad was a chiropractor. His parents flew in from Denver to visit for the weekend, and I remember sitting down to chat with them for “a few minutes” before they left for dinner. That conversation lasted for hours!
His father talked about chiropractic, and how an Upper Cervical doctor from New Zealand (Dr. Milton Miller) changed his life. He spoke of restored vision and hearing, the reversal of paralysis, and even cancer patients going into remission.
He compared the various chiropractic techniques to a baseball game. Most will achieve base hits, doubles and triples. Every so often, you’ll hit a home run. But with Upper Cervical, it’s one grand slam after the next.
Later that same evening, I read a quote from Dr. BJ Palmer… “Some day — it might be RIGHT NOW, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week … this Chiropractic movement will hit YOU… When it does, YOU will find YOURself. Then YOU will rant and rave and wonder why everybody doesn’t see what YOU see, understand what YOU understand. You will demand that all go farther and faster than the slow education of the masses makes possible. YOU will become as nutty as the rest of us…”
My eyes welled up as I read it. It was as if Dr. Palmer was speaking directly to me. It helped me realize WHY I was in chiropractic school.
I decided that even though I was at a philosophically-oppressive school, I would do whatever it took to become an Upper Cervical doctor. It was such a defining moment for me that I get choked up every time I tell that story.
I immersed myself in the Green Books, reading as much as I could… and boy did I become nutty. I called, emailed, and visited every Upper Cervical doctor I could find… which wasn’t easy, because UpCspine.com didn’t exist yet! Fast-forward, and here we are today. I am eternally grateful to Dr. Milton Miller and the Warhurst family for helping shape my future.”
Dr. Lauren Clum – “It’s something I have always been aware of, and have always had an appreciation for.
When my brother was in school, he was all about upper cervical, so I learned more about it, but wasn’t completely sold on it.
Then when I got into the health center in chiropractic school I just about had a breakdown because I felt like what I was doing was not matching up with what I was saying. I felt like we talked about the nervous system all the time, that chiropractic restored function to the nervous system to improve health, but then all I was doing with my patients was following the pain, no matter how hard I tried to just “adjust what I found”. I felt like a big fat Band-aid, and hated it.
I knew I needed to do something different, so I started looking for something objective. I came to a crossroad where I knew that I was either going to become a CBP doc, or an upper cervical doc. I guess you can see which road I chose.”
Moses Bernard – “In my first trimester here, our philosophy professor (who we will call a ‘retired’ UC doc), ‘bribed’ the class into going to the upper cervical club’s guest speakers for bonus marks in the class. My impression of the speaker at the start of the tri was that he was a VERY arrogant local AO doc, which presented upper cervical care as an elitist part of chiropractic, only fit for the upper echelon of society. Needless to say, this really turned me off from upper cervical.
There was another bribe/guest speaker for the club near the end of the tri, and despite being so turned off the first time I went anyways. It was an orthospinology Dr. from Austin, and most of the presentation was research from Kirk Erickson’s “Upper Cervical Subluxation Complex”. In my mind, (at the time) it was easy to connect UC care to headaches or brainstem related systemic issues (blood pressure, chronic pain, etc.), but it was a resorbed L4 disc herniation that really sold me.
I ordered Erickson’s text book the next day, and when it came in, I read it from cover to cover. Here I was thinking there was no research in chiropractic, turns out we have textbooks worth! The way I see it, you can’t read Erickson’s book and NOT want to be a UC doctor!”
Dr. Drew Hall - “I found out about Upper Cervical Care from a homeopathic Doctor. After a very long consultation and history she uncovered a wrestling accident I had had when I was seventeen. To me that accident was just another triviality of life. But to her it was a possible cause for my health problems.
Thankfully this doctor put her patient’s health first, not her pocket book. She said to me, “Drew, I think I can help you. However I think you will be better served by seeing this man.”
That man was my savior, Dr. Tom Forest. I will never ever forget that day. That message changed my life on every single level and continues to.
After that first adjustment I have led a life led by design. Being connected from ADIO with that which created this entire universe is a gift.
And it is that GIFT that we have the opportunity to share with each patient. The gift of living with the infinite!”
Dr. Paul Hambrick – “My whole family was having supper at the table one night, and my sister was talking to my mom about what kind of chiropractic her new boyfriend’s dad (Dr. Pierce Sr.) practiced.
She said that he practiced a technique that specialized in correcting misalignments at the very first bone in the neck. Since every single nerve in the body passes through this bone, when it’s correctly aligned, it takes care of a multitude of problems in the rest of the body.
I remember thinking to myself, “That makes sense. Kind of like a main circuit breaker in an electrical system. If it ain’t right, nothing’s right.”
And that was how I first heard about the concept.”
Dr. Darren White - “When I was in my 5th quarter at Life, I suffered a major health scare and it sent me on a journey to find the best technique in chiropractic. Once I saw Dr. Rustici’s presentation on Dr. Blair’s research on malformations and anomalies, it was over. I then became a huge pain in the neck for my other technique teachers. I have calmed down a lot since then! I also worked with Dr. Susan Brown in the Research Clinic at Life and she performed my first Blair adjustment… life changing.”
Dr. James Tomasi – “My wife heard a testimony about Upper Cervical over a Christian radio program, The Oasis Road Show, out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Rhonda made an appointment for me with the nearest UC DC. The following Tuesday hope was restored just prior to the planned suicide time I’d chosen.”
Rhonda Tomasi – “An angel moved the radio dial to a station I did not listen to. I heard a woman talking about her hopeless situation being helped through a little known science within Chiropractic.”
Liz Jones – “Towards the end of my first year at Western States Chiropractic College, I started getting ready to face the Part I National Board Exam. I had heard so many upper classmen tell me different tricks and things to do to get ready, but I knew the exam was a National exam and I was curious how students from the other chiropractic colleges were getting ready for the exam.
I actually did a browse search online through MySpace for chiropractic students and found another student at Life university who was also LDS. I was curious to get an idea how his school culture was since my school had about a 60-65% LDS student body attending the program.
We spent several months sharing what we learned that was different. He spoke about Upper Cervical Chiropractic with every conversation and in the beginning I thought he was quite gullible to believe it.
After 10 months of regular conversations he insisted I at least go to a seminar about it and hear about it. He told me if I still felt the same after the seminar he would respect my point of view and never try to bring it up again. He told me the seminar that I should go to was” The Upper Cervical Evolution 2008 in Nashville, TN.” He offered to pay my registration and cover details with my room only leaving me airfare.
I spent 3 days in Nashville, TN at the 2008 Evolution hearing things I had NEVER heard before. I was a bit disconnected from the philosophy that was at the seminar, but really felt it make an impression on me when Dr. Robert Kessinger spoke about Upper Cervical Neurology.
That’s when it all finally started to make a little sense to me because I could apply all the science I had learned at Western States to what he spoke about concerning the Atlas Subluxation Complex. I still had not become a full believer but could see how it made sense and was open to hearing more about it.”
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
This is my favorite article Brandon. I love hearing the defining events of such chiropractic legends. It’s truly inspiring.