As I wind down my final two weeks as an intern at Parker College, I was pondering some of the common things said by chiropractic students and their views on opening up shop.
One of the most common things I hear is when people are looking for a place to go, whether it be an associateship, internship, or beginning a practice, they want to avoid a saturated market.
We are told in our business classes here to avoid saturated markets, that the ideal chiropractor to person ratio should be approximately 1 in 3000. Other business people I have spoken to outside of the chiropractic profession iterate the same line of thinking.
When speaking of generalized chiropractic, as it is thought of today, I agree.
The Chiropractic Monster Unleashed
When people think of chiropractic, they think back pain. That didn’t happen by chance, it happened because most chiropractors treat only back pain, as well as other common symptoms.
In fact, our profession has gotten itself into the mode of diagnosing and treating symptoms. I understand the scope, and how we are expected to diagnose per state laws, but in its purest form, chiropractic has absolutely nothing to do with diagnosing anything except vertebral subluxation.
In diagnosing and treating patients, this puts us into the same bucket as the allopaths. I understand that people will often come to me because they are in pain. However, our lexicon has become blended with the traditional mainstream phrases of the medical profession.
Phrases like exercise prescriptions, nutra-ceuticals, Chiropractic Manipulative Treatments, case management, co-management, etc. are commonplace everywhere now in chiropractic. Much of this muddled language comes from chiropractic being in the insurance game, which sees everything as symptoms-based.
I had a conversation with a physical therapist a couple days ago. I realized how much alike the two professions have become now. Everything I talked about with him, I’ve talked about with people at chiropractic schools, from wellness plans to high insurance deductibles. There’s virtually no difference in what he does and what we are taught in school.
With the schools teaching chiropractic in this light, it does little for the students as a whole except add to the uncertainty that comes with graduation.
One professor told us a statistic that 50% of chiropractic school graduates aren’t even practicing within one year of graduation. Whether that is true or not, I don’t know. I do suspect, however, that it is not far from the truth.
Gaining Confidence
When I think of a pain-based chiropractic clinic that takes all insurance, I relate it to a high stress environment. Having to worry about how much insurance will actually pay, when you will get paid, etc. are not comforting thoughts to me.
When people graduate from chiropractic school, often times they get themselves into an associateship trapped as an exam doc or overflow doc in one of these practices. They bounce from practice to practice, unable to gain any type of real confidence in this model.
the most confident people I know in chiropractic school are the ones that have separated themselves from the pack. They are the ones doing something different than everyone else.
Seeing how I will practice straight Upper Cervical Chiropractic, I will talk about that. It sounds crazy to specialize in only moving two bones, but in studying the upper cervical spine, i.e. biomechanics, anatomy, and neurology of it, it makes the most sense to me of anything out there.
It makes sense, not only to me, but to everyone I explain it to. Whenever I tell people about the atlas and axis, and their relationship with the brain stem, as well as what the brain stem does, the light bulbs turn on. People understand it.
If I go on to tell people that Christopher Reeve shattered his atlas, taking into account its relationship with the brain stem, people understand and don’t need convincing that what I do is important.
The name of the game is being different. Doing the same old back pain/insurance song and dance is not for me.
Thank goodness for Upper Cervical Chiropractic!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Very astute, and don’t forget what you need in order to impart to your patients and potential patients that you are different: A USP
http://www.uppercervicaldocs.com/blog/how-to-develop-an-upper-cervical-usp/
“chiropractic has absolutely nothing to do with diagnosing anything except vertebral subluxation.”
It is amazing to me how many chiropractors there are out there that I meet who don’t get this as well … even upper cervical chiros! They will say they treat vertigo … or sciatica, or a host of other things that tend to resolve when the upper cervicals are taken care of when really they do nothing of the kind. They treat the upper cervical misalignment and then the BODY takes care of the rest.
One of my biggest beefs with “main stream” chiropractic as it stands right now is their absolute belief that chiropractic philosophy no longer has any part in what chiropractors do. Which is patently absurd if you are actually a CHIROPRACTOR rather than a chiropractic physiotherapist!
Every patient I meet or potential patient I talk to has it explained very clearly and several times that I don’t treat their symptoms … I treat the misalignment. Not all of them get it, but I do everything in my power to make sure as many as possible do.
One spine at a time!
Amen brother! You couldn’t have said it better. Something that always angered me is hearing from doctors about the failure rate of new Chiropractors. That engrains failure into the new practitioners head which doesn’t allow growth or the acceptance of a challenge. You now have an excuse to quit, and the more new docs that quit, the less likely of a chance for Chiropractic to be the #1 health profession in the world. We need to stand up and unite and encourage the young docs to be successful.
You can talk all you want about the benefits of Chiropractic, but once someone experiences an Upper Cervical adjustment and the amazing benefits of it, then they WILL refer.
Brandon…I am so stoked to have you in this profession as a friend and a colleague.
The kids love the pictures!