William Soriano is a student at Life University in Atlanta, GA. I met him last year at Upper Cervical Evolution and was very impressed by the amount of chiropractic mission trips he had already been on as a student.
William was able to take some time out of busy school schedule to answer some questions for The Atlas of Life.
Dr. Harshe: Why did you decide to become a chiropractor?
William: “I originally was interested in law, but after working for the biggest law firm in Florida, I decided that was not the kind of life I wanted to live. That left me back on the job market looking for something new.
One day, while looking in the classifieds, I saw one that intrigued me. The ad simply said, “what do you know about health and chiropractic” so I called and was granted an interview.
My interview went great and the chiropractor told me I was 99% certain to get the job as long as I came to his lay lecture and connected with what he said. In my mind, I was going to tell him I connected no matter what he said. However, once he started talking about Innate Intelligence and how it uses the nervous system to coordinate every action in our bodies, I was really moved. Needless to say I secured the job.
After working there for 1 month, Dr. Accurso told me that I needed to tell my wife that I would be going out of town to attend a chiropractic seminar called Dynamic Essential in Atlanta, GA. At D.E., I heard some of the professions greatest philosophers including, Dr. Jim Sigafoose, Dr. Dick Santo, and many others. These guys were crazy and I wanted some of the passion that came from them.
While at D.E., Dr. Accurso spoke at Life and asked me to come along. I thought the campus was great and we I returned to Miami, I told my wife that I didn’t know when, but we would be moving to Atlanta so that I could become a chiropractor.
Three years later, that journey began.”
Dr. Harshe: How did you get into upper cervical?
William: “Dr. Accurso is a Thompson practitioner though at the time I didn’t know it, I thought all chiropractors did the same thing.
Onced I moved to Atlanta, I got a job working with a Life grad who, for lack of more PC discriptions, was a BROAD scope chiropractor. She didn’t believe in our philosophy and never attended any seminars on such. She employed several massage therapist and never held any lay lectures to educate her patients as to what chiropractic actually is, probably because she was clueless herself.
While working there, I got “adjusted” EVERYDAY until one Friday when she “adjusted” my atlas. That evening, I developed the worst headache, deep boring neck pain, and awful pain on the entire right side of my face. When I returned to work on Monday I told her what had happened and so, she “adjusted” me again. Later on that week when my pain hadn’t subsided, she continued to “adjust” me and also started using traction… it didn’t work.
I quit and then spent the next year with daily pain. I was only getting 2-3 hours of interupted sleep and I was making my wife almost as miserable as I with my constant waking and moaning out loud with pain. I tried all sorts of chiropractors, some gave me relief for 1-2 days, then out of nowhere the pain would return, I was beginning to doubt this whole chiropractic thing.
Eventually, while on a road trip to Palmer in Davenport as a Brother of Delta Sigma Chi, I heard Dr. Robert Kessinger talk about upper cervical neurology. What he said made the most sense since I first heard Dr. Accurso talk about this philosophy. I was ADJUSTED that night by Dr. Kessinger using the Knee-Chest protocol and my pain was gone! Two weeks later the pain returned and I started care with Dr. Anderson in Dallas, GA. I was in pattern and needed another ADJUSTMENT, but I never experienced any of those symptoms again.
That experience re-ignited my passion for chirpractic and I made up my mind that I would do whatever necessary to become a master of this upper cervical thing, I’ve been on the road to mastery ever since.”
Dr. Harshe: What has your experience been at Life University as an upper cervical-minded student?
William: “We are all in a profession that has people with totally different views on health than the rest of the health care profession. We’re already weird and crazy to say the cause is in the spine, now here comes a couple of crazy’s saying it’s in the upper cervical spine!
All kidding aside, my experience as an upper cervical student has been great. People sometimes make snide comments about upper cervical, but when they have questions regarding the topic, I’ll almost always get asked. Several old school clinicians also appreciate seeing the few of us who do upper cervical objectively check patients for subluxation, and having found them clear, send them home without an ADJUSTMENT.”
Dr. Harshe: What technique do you plan on utilizing in practice and why?
William: “I will use the Knee Chest Upper Cervical Specific technique as taught to us by the K.C.U.C.S. I really like using thermography to read into the patients physiology. I like having the objectivity of pre and post scans to let me know when an ADJUSTMENT is needed, and more inportantly, when one was actually given.
I know that all chiropractic techniques work, if they didn’t, the profession would not be around today. There are simply not enough upper cervical chiropractors to have kept the profession going.
However, it has always been about success vs failure cases, and as B.J. found through years of research, his percentage of success cases rose significantly once he began to concentrate on the upper cervical spine.”
Dr. Harshe: How many mission trips have you been on and what have they been like?
William: “I have been on eight. Guatemala 3 times, India, Bulgaria, Dominican Republic, and El Salvador 2 times.”
Dr. Harshe: What was the most unique experience you had while on a mission trip?
William: “Every mission trip has its own character and unique experiences, but there is one experience that comes to mind.
It was on a trip to El Salvador and our host got us into the biggest hospital in the capital. I gave a talk about upper cervical neurology and cancer to a room of about 40 doctors and nurses.
Throughout my talk they had the most blank look on their faces, showing neither approval nor disgust. Fortunately, after I was done they all applauded and got checked and ADJUSTED as needed.
Even better is the fact that they let us check and adjust about 300-400 children with leukemia, you see these doctors were oncologist and we were on the childrens leukemia ward. On that floor, there were about 6 children that were quarantined because of secondary infections as a result of chemotherapy. Initially they would not let us check those kids because they were afraid we would get sick. We told them that was not possible, and after several attempts they agreed on the condition that we wore white lab coats and used hand sanitizer in between patients, (as if this would somehow protect us).
There was one boy who was so ill, he had hard palpable lymph nodes that were so painful, he could not eat right because it hurt him to swallow. His mother explained to us how he wouldn’t play, or hadn’t eaten right for about 30 days, and that nothing the doctors did seemed to help. The boy was ADJUSTED and two days later we were asked to return. Upon checking this child, he was playing, eating right, and the lymph nodes in his neck were no longer palpable and did not hurt. His mother gave us a video testimony that brought our entire team to tears.
Dr. Harshe: What are your plans after graduation?
William: “After graduation I will be moving to Texas for 1 year to practice with my friend, Dr. Crowder. After that year is done, my wife and I plan on moving our family back to Atlanta and opening a practice.”
Dr. Harshe: What do you envision for the future of Upper Cervical Chiropractic?
William: “I’m not sure what the future holds for our profession. There is an ever increasing push by certain factions of the profession to push us more and more into the medical paradigm. These people argue against x-rays, thermography, and care for anything other than musculoskeletal conditions.
If we can’t get more narrow scope practitioners involved politically, or to put out quality research, we may find ourselves on the outside looking in.
As fledgling -TORS, we need to fight for what we know to be true by getting involved. The politics of the profession may take us away from practice. If that’s not our calling, then we need to back the people who will fill that role, be it financially or with overall support.”
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Another great interview! Thanks for sharing w/ all of us guys!
Awesome interview Will…and what a great picture. I miss seeing you. So far I havent had to be adjusted and everything is going smoothly.
One more Chiropractor to save the world from subluxations