Christian's Blog

I've been meaning to write this article for a couple weeks for the simple purpose that not that many people outside of National know what the heck we do. In addition, not many people know the massive trend that has been going on inside the DC profession to morph into a "modern doctor" to meet and exceed this modern health care problem of runaway chronic disease and pain. 

Who this article is for:

• For people who respond when I say, "I'm a chiropractor" with "So you guys have like a one-year program where you crack backs and stuff right?"
• For DCs who think that just adjusting will get a patient totally better.

Here's a model laid out by Dr. Mark King and the Motion Palpation Institute:

The moral of the story is chiropractors of the new "modern" movement do A LOT. They address the human as a functional system--focusing on what is wrong and fixing it--whether that is musculoskeletal or biochemical or neurological.

If the patient has fibromyalgia you aren't getting them better by crushing their spine all day. Sure, that will help gait the pain, but if they aren't on the anti-inflammatory diet with possibly vitamin D and fish oil, you aren't addressing the reason they hurt everywhere. If they are instable at their right sacroiliac joint, you aren't going to just blast it for temporary relief. You are going to stabilize the core and the glutes with rehab exercises and adjust the restrictions (possibly other SI) to return correct motor patterns and reduce/eliminate pain. 

That is what being a modern DC is all about, in my humble opinion, of course. It's about having more tools in your "bag." At the very core you should have: 

1. Palpation and Adjusting Skills
2. Soft Tissue (ART, Graston, Guasha, etc.)

You have to have at least those. Then I believe you should add on skills to make sure you can treat that many more tough patients that walk in your door and, more importantly, get your patients better faster. That is the ultimate practice builder. Results.

So things like Kinesio Taping®, DNS, AK, nutritional counseling, homeopathy, acupuncture, rehab, etc., etc. The list goes on. 

You can't do everything, nor should you. Follow what makes sense to you. Master what you love, and help change the world one healthier patient at a time.

Take Care and God Bless,
Christian

Unbelievably, we have already finished 2 weeks of the summer trimester. Thus far I have a great schedule and enjoy my classes. 

Viscera anatomy is definitely my favorite class so far because we get to do "unreal" dissections. It's funny to think of kids playing doctor and dreaming of one day doing exactly that. I wonder if they ever would have dreamed it would require being wrist deep in someone's chest cavity and scooping out lung fluid and cutting out the heart? I for one didn't; but I think it's fun - in a way only a fellow med student could appreciate! 

There has been some campus chatter about whether or not the profession (DC) should get basic prescription rights. Obviously, the lack of drug therapy has been one of the profession's draws and defining features. The argument is that we shouldn't deal drugs because it contradicts our holistic approach to health care. READ: We know heart disease isn't from a lack of Lipitor. :) 

The other side--one that seems to be more in favor at National's campus (especially by our president, Dr. Winterstein)--states in a world with tight insurance budget cuts for chiropractic care and numerous medical organizations slow to accept CAM professions, we should embrace the opportunity to increase our scope of practice. In addition, with the upcoming increase in the number of insured people we (DCs) could have to step in and fill primary care positions to ease the ever-thinning health care infrastructure. Lastly, and perhaps my favorite argument for prescription rights is that it gives chiropractic physicians the clinical right to take patients OFF a drug if we feel they don't need it any more, or we think it could be opted with a safer herb or supplement. That is powerful, in my opinion. 

Right now, if a patient walks in my office with 5-10 prescriptions, which isn't uncommon among the elderly, I merely have to recognize it. If we do some type of nutritional intervention and lifestyle adjustments, they won't need that many anymore. But they can't stop because I say so; the MD that prescribed them would them to take them off it. Considering our relationships with MD colleagues, that presents a challenge in and of itself. The DC polls seem to literally be split at 53% for, 48% against, according to a Dynamic Chiropractic  magazine that I read. As always, we'll have to wait and see during these interesting times.

My family and I at my grandma's surprise birthday party.

Redoing My Lifting Study

On a fun note, I will be readjusting my lifting case study from last trimester to try to gain 10-15 lbs. of lean mass in 10-15 days. I will push for 15 only if it looks like I will hit 10 easily, which will be hard. If you recall from my last study, I gained 20 lbs. in 30 days. This time I will change my lift schedule to help define whether it was mostly what I ate or how I trained that moved the results needle so far. I've been purposely lifting only once a week for about 10 min. to keep the muscle, yet I have definitely lost a few pounds through my legs because I don't lift them any more. I did this because I started to get skinny jeans as I added 2.5 inches to my thighs! If you know me, that isn't my style and I didn't feel like buying new clothes so removing leg pressing from the equation was the natural progression. 

If there are any Boston fans out there reading this, GO BRUINS!

Cheers,

CC     

Hello Everyone!

This past week finally was the last week I had to study for midterms. It's been a long 2.5 weeks and I'm about as burnt out as you can be, which definitely cost me a few productive hours of studying for neurophysiology. Nonetheless I'm uber excited for the upcoming St. Patty's Day weekend. A bunch of us are going into the city to do something called the 'bar crawl'? I believe it's because they expect people to have to crawl from bar to bar at the end because all the green frothy beverages caught up with them. I'm really just excited to share some laughs and see the Chicago River colored GREEEN! 

This week was the first time I've ever been to the naturopathic clinic on campus; it's always good to expand your borders. They bring another view to the world of medicine and one that DCs should be trying to understand more because I believe in the future they will cross paths even more than in the past with integrated care catching on rapidly in the States. My purpose for going in was to have my diet analyzed from a ND's perspective to see if they caught any obvious things that could have dropped my hormone production. They didn't notice anything super dramatic, but the intern wanted me to retest my testosterone levels this Thursday before we do anything else to make sure that it wasn't a bad lab test or something erroneous.  

I've also come to the conclusion that I'm going to rehaul my time management skills. I want to start recording how long I study for certain tests, how much free time I allot myself during the weekends, etc., etc. It sounds rather OCD and will therefore be really hard for me because I have a problem with data entry and minute tasks, but if I'm able to optimize my time I could get even better grades and have even more fun. Let's face it who wouldn't want that? 

In addition, I would have less stress knowing that for a "B" I need on average (X) hours of studying and for an "A" I need (Y). Then I can plan my finals appropriately without feeling stressed and always asking myself, "Did I study enough?" Of course this might take a trimester to figure out but it will be a personal growth experiment that could pay dividends for years to come. I'll have more on this in the coming weeks.  

That's it for me this week. I'll recharge and hopefully have some good stories and pictures from Green Chi Town next week.  

Adios,
Christian