Christian's Blog

Hey National, 

Hope everyone is having a great week! I've got some awesome news for you! Tim Ferriss, author of the New York Times Best Seller's 4 Hour Work Week, 4 Hour Body, and 4 Hour Chef  contacted me and asked me to post a guest post on his million subscriber blog this upcoming spring. I contacted Tim a few months ago about a clinical case study I did on myself a long time ago here at NUHS. With Dr. Anderson supervising the blood tests and my file at the clinic, I proceeded to gain 20 lbs. of lean mass in 30 days and have some pretty fun before/after pictures. The results were quite astonishing and Mr. Ferriss wanted to chronicle my "study" on his blog. 

This has prompted some thinking on my end. Starting a personal blog. Why? Consider the amount of readers about to read this guest post (which will probably go up in early April); it would be a shame to waste that level of traffic with no way of leveraging them. If I had a blog and or some supplements I would be able to maximize the opportunity to possibly start a little side business, which is on my bucket list. 

This is a double-pronged activator head attachment made by a fellow student at National.

I emailed a few designers and have gotten quotes on designing a custom Wordpress theme, but the price is a little steep and I'm considering using free "plug-n-play" type software. 

I'm also considering getting that superfood formula I blogged about the last week manufactured as the results of that formula have been phenomenal so far! 

I'll keep you updated on the shenanigans that will follow. :) As for National, it was a pretty slow week with tests starting to trickle on the docket. 

Be Easy,
Christian 

Hey National, 

Hope everyone's week is going well. Congratulations to the Baltimore Ravens for their Super Bowl win, I don't enjoy typing that as a Patriots fan, but give respect where respect is due. 

2013 is flying by so far and Midterms will be starting next week. I'm trying to get into Midterm mode but I've been heavily distracted outside of NUHS activities and I need to get down to the grind. 

In case you're a new or prospective student to NUHS, they offer a few businesses classes built into the curriculum. Why is that important? Well, as a future DC you will wear multiple hats. One, as a doctor, and one as a businessperson. The best doctor in the world who doesn't know how to run an office or get a business loan will never treat patients! Most people hate the business classes because they didn't choose to go to business school; they chose medical school. Sooner or later, they come to their senses, and most likely later will thank NUHS for at least teaching basic business groundwork. 

I'm currently in Tri 7's Business Planning Class. This class has a host of speakers (so far) who lecture us on various aspects of running a DC office: Insurance coverage, financial statements, your practice "vision" and how to work that backwards, how to approach a bank with a business plan and get a loan, etc.

Over the coming weeks we have a business plan project assignment and we will have to do exactly what we as future private practice owners will have to go through. In other words, if we take it seriously we could have a great leg up on what we hope to do in real life--a truly valuable experience, and one that will undoubtedly help us weed out the mistakes as a student when they don't matter as much!

Be Well,
Christian

My Homemade Criteria for Owning Your Own Practice

Hey Cygnets (we seriously need a better school name),

I was contacted over break by a prospective student about what to expect upon graduation with regards to practice or jobs. I have contacted a few of my older friends in practice who are a couple semesters out of school and I'll have some interview-based blogs as they get back to me over the coming weeks with some good information for prospective and current students. With that said, I'll break down my understanding of some different options post-graduation. 

I'd like to start with this: Chiropractic is a WIDE OPEN field. It's as unique as its doctors and you can do whatever you like with it if you hustle and want it enough. For instance, there are chiropractors on cruise lines, in hospitals, working in residencies, sports teams, etc., etc. I don't have enough space (or time or will power) to break down all the different paths one can take post-grad. I will focus my energies on the BIGGEST QUESTION of any chiropractic student. 

Do I start my own practice or work for someone else?  

That's the million-dollar question. Answering it comes down to a couple factors in my brief experience through looking at other doctors/students:

1. What type of person are you?
2. Are you good enough to practice on your own?
3. Are you prepared enough to open by yourself?

1. Let's call a spade a spade here: some people are NOT meant to own their own practice. It's just not in their mindset to be responsible for running the practice, treating patients, marketing, and everything else that comes along with being a BUSINESS OWNER. Some docs will tell you, "I just worry about treating patients. I don't care about business." Well in the real world, you could be the best doctor in the world and if you can't get any patients in your door or pay your bills on time (+student loans) then you're going to chapter 7 (bankruptcy).

I try not to sugar coat anything because I respected my Dad for telling me how it was when I was younger so I wasn't wet behind the ears when the real world stuff started up. Don't fret too much, however. We get some business classes here; there are all sorts of practice management companies out there to help you; you can always shadow lots of doctors and they'll be happy to show you how the office management stuff runs. Point is: If you're a competent physician, you're not socially awkward, and you have even the tiniest bit of passion to own your own office, it's more than doable.

My brother and I playing roller hockey--old mighty ducks style!

Side note on bias: I am opening my own practice upon graduation (unless I get an absurd offer from a sports team or top doctor in an unique area I want to live in for a year or two). I have worked in a chiro office for 4 years and I have a business degree from undergrad. I like doing things my way without having to take orders or be held back from others, so I didn't even have a question in my mind that I was choosing to start my own practice. Sorry for the strong bias. With that said, I've been preparing. I'm not just letting life come; I'm grabbing hold while I'm ahead.

2. The second question is just as sobering. Are you good enough to see patients by yourself in your own office and get them better? The easiest (and cheapest) marketing strategy long-term is your clinical results. Get people better and they will talk. If you're still struggling to help people in 9th and 10th tri (main clinic), maybe you should consider working for another doc for a year or two until you feel confident in your clinical skills.

How do you make sure this doesn't happen? Go to SEMINARS. GO TO SEMINARS. GO TO SEMINARS. GO TO SEMINARS. Oh, yeah? GO TO SEMINARS and PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. Oh, yeah? And GO TO CLUBS, GO TO CLUBS, GO TO CLUBS. If you get into NUHS and you are not going to clubs, seminars or practicing your "high speed palpations", you are doing yourself and your future patients a disservice, and I did not do my job at this blog.

Adjusting isn't very hard, but it's extremely difficult if you rely only on the few hours a week we are physically adjusting in classes. We cool? I know I'm biased. But that's why I'm blogging and that's why you're reading--it's to decrease your learning curve so you don't wind up in the clinic wondering what the heck you're doing 5 visits into a patient with back pain and no idea what to do next.

Side note: Readers of this blog are statistically proven to become better doctors and are 99% better looking than non-readers. ;) 

3. Last Question: Are you prepared to be in practice by yourself? The obvious answers are have you shadowed docs, gotten a chiro assistant job, talked to teachers with practices and older trimester students? I'll do my part to help out by rounding up the interviews from some recent grads for you to answer some of your questions. If you have a specific question feel free to email me. :)

Until next week...

Peace out Cub Scout,
CC 

I was introduced to Ramit Sethi's work, author of I Will Teach You to Be Rich, (I know it sounds scammy but that's why he did it; he's the real deal) when I was reading Tim Ferriss' Blog (4 Hour Body author) a few years ago. At the time I was a finance major at James Madison University and Ramit's outside-the-box-thinking and writing on personal finance, automating businesses and entrepreneurship, which I love, captured me as a devoted reader of his blog.

Anyways, out of nowhere (actually, I'm assuming his newsletter software screened people from 'Chicago area' out), he emails me that he is doing a reader meet-up in Chicago. Sweet! I emailed him back a little about me and he emailed back, "nice, look fwd to meet you."

Me with Ramit Sethi

And so it began...

I'd like to point out that motion palp was hosting a cornhole (bags) tournament the same night I was supposed to go into the city for the meet-up. Bags? Tournament? Fun? Soo, naturally I signed up. I will say this, RJ and I were playing like we could run the table. HOWEVER, in an almost eerie 'Listen up, the universe is talking,' we got beat by Peanut Butter Jelly Time, a solid team (Kendall and Caleb) no doubt, but we suddenly went from dominating to an ultra close 21-19 loss.

At this point, I was still pondering in my head "Should I stay or should I go now?" With all the classic "excuse thoughts" that enter one's head when they are expanding their bubble past their comfort zone, which going into the Loop on a Thursday night to meet a bunch of people I didn't know and try to network and meet a NYT author would definitely classify in my book, at least at that time, as a "bubble stretcher."

Thoughts like...

• "What if there's like 300 people... what a waste."
• "What if I'm the only young person there?"
• "What if he's actually a jerk and I don't like anybody there?"
• "This bags tournament is really fun, and we don't get to do this that often, let's stay here."

And to think I almost was going to pass up this opportunity to stretch my bubble. That's when the universe said, "You LOST (at ironically the perfect time to run home change and catch the train), now go." Ha, funny how things work.

The Meet-Up

The meet-up was down W. Adams Street, not far from the Willis (Sears) Tower, at a place called The Living Room. On Yelp the reviews were "very classy, but service is OK." lol I will definitely vouch for the classy part. As I hadn't hoped for, that "class," also occupied the "we don't serve that here" look on the bartenders face when I ordered, a Bud Light. They only had Amstel for beers. And $10 later ($1 for tip) I thought to myself... well, I will stay sober tonight thanks to you classy-hotel-cool-lights-and-modern-couches-and-expensive-drinks-place.

The Approach

Well, I had made it. With a frothy beverage in hand and a trendy looking crowd of about 35 (7 circles of 5 by my quick gaze), I scoped out where Ramit was talking. He was talking to a couple younger gents that seemed to be salivating while speaking. I had a brief game plan (I had draw up on the train ride in) as to how to casually strike up a conversation. From the angle I was at (the bar) I couldn't make a more than an awkward 'excuse me' tap on the shoulder. THAT'S not what I wanted. I instead opted for a 'I need to take this exit' as I whipped out my cell phone and walked to edge of the crowd pretending there was someone important on the line so I didn't look creepy while stalking my plan of attack.

Then that weird butterfly feeling started turning my stomach (who knew butterflies could lift a stomach?). Instead of the typical sympathetic reaction I was waiting for, I quite literally said out loud, "Let's see what you're made of," and promptly approached Ramit from a more approachable (and premeditated) angle, walked right up, and to the best of my casual yet confident ability, introduced myself.

Ramit and I went on to have a stellar conversation for about 25 minutes about everything from working out, to launching a business, to tracking metrics on websites, to experiments in self-improvement. Ramit, I must say, was pretty damn cool. One of his event assistants excused him to attend to something in the back and I went on to mingle with the other people in that circle for the rest of the night. At about 10:30, a good hour and a half past the end of the 'meet-up' he swung around each group and said the ole' "Good meeting, I'm taking off." I wished him luck on his new DreamJob Creation Product Launch that's due out in January and snapped this quick picture with him.

Awesome. The Night was a Success. I met my first New York Times Best Selling Author (which used to be on my bucket list), and I met some really cool people, one of which offered me a free cross fit workout downtown whenever I wanted. I will hit him up on that as we coordinated me possibly giving a mini nutrition seminar to his gym on "Reducing Inflammation Naturally With Diet and Supplementation." Cool beans.

In case you're interested here are a few mental notes I purged onto paper when I got home from my chats at the meet-up.

14 Cool Things I Learned

1. Ramit tracks everything fanatically because he puts so much money into new ventures, if he doesn't know his target market perfectly it would be a flop product launch.
2. Ramit went four months and then completely changed tracks because his market data changed their initial plan. (Business lesson read: Be flexible, give what the market wants, not what you think they want.)
3. Views January as a huge month to launch a big product. Works year long on a particular project to launch it.
4. I need to get some biz cards. (I got more offers than I was expecting.)
5. Cross fit could be a huge underground market (for potential chiro clients).
6. People don't know that much about chiropractic. One guy asked when you adjust, do you do stretches or something?? Bhahah, he literally had NO CLUE what we did. I that he's going to get his first adjustment lol. Side Note: I almost sat him down at the party and gave him a seated CT but opted last minute that might not be a good idea lol.
7. Old book selling and sell old rare books on ebay for a killing.)
8. Project designs on satellites can take 30 years to come out lol. (One guy who just moved to CHI from LA said he worked for the Air Force but we might not get the chance to see what he was working on until we retire. Something about Top Secret.)
9. Always ask for a photo... Ramit was more than happy to. Plus, why not?
10. Just go for it and talk... I walked to the back after scoping the territory and said, "Well, here goes nothing," and had a great conversation. As Nike says, "Just do it."
11. Prepped a sheet of an elevator pitch, some common talking points of things I knew he was doing. (This helped carry on an interesting conversation that explained who I was and found commonalities in what he was doing so it would hopefully be a more memorable conversation so when I emailed him later thanking him and asking him for mentorship he might reply "yes.")
12. Non-verbals are so important. (Pay attention to this next time your in a conversation with someone you don't know. Reading this allows you to quickly move onto different talking points until you get the right one.)
13. Monster.com and careerbuilder.com are jokes. (This one guy's sister works for Monster and they literally get thousands of applications/resumes for one job opening. Do you think you have a chance? Instead, go out and hustle and build your network and make impressions and get 'informal' job offers, not necessarily advertised as 'openings' by the company.
14. Groupon has shady accounting and no wonder Google didn't buy it. It's a dying company that's disorganized. Apparently the fun-writing website is on the skids and the business model isn't as well oiled as their creative deal writing.

That is all. Long post. Thanks for reading NUHS' blog...all 10 of you :) 

Christian

I'm officially one-third done with the trimester! I have to say that I'm pretty excited for the weather to start turning around and for the upcoming break. Premature? Maybe. But here's a list of things I have to look forward to (and keep me motivated to work hard this tri):

1. Easter is the Sunday after finals and it will mark the first time since high school that I will get to go home and celebrate it with my family! Can you say Easter egg hunt with my little cousins?

2. My 23rd BDAY! It's during break and I'm super excited to go home and go into Boston to see all my high school buds that I never get to see!

3. Going to James Madison to watch two of my best friends graduate, which I'm super pumped for! It's been almost a year since I've seen any of my college friends so that long weekend should be as epic as our last snowstorm. 

Neuro Practical

This upcoming week we have a Neuroanatomy lab practical midterm. It's been grossly overhyped by everyone as one of the harder tests we'll take at school because the level of thinking for a particular question is very involved. A lab practical for you future students is not unlike some of your undergrad science courses where they tag a structure (with a colored pin) and ask either identify or what is this involved in. Dr. Darby likes to raise the bar on these questions by asking, "What is lost when there is a lesion (tumor/hematoma/etc.) at the tagged structure."

For example's sake, she would have a colored pin in the Optic Chiasm (where the optic nerves converge in the brain). You'd not only have to know what the structure was but also how the visual pathway of nerves surges through that structure so if in fact there was a lesion you would be able to discern what loss you'd observe in a patient. So you'd reply bitemporal hemianopia (doctor speak for tunnel vision). So this type of studying occupied most of my week. BIG NEURO WEEK is the inside joke among Shannon and my classmates 

CVs

This week our curriculum vitae or CV was due for our intro to business class taught by Dr. Hodges. The class is a sugar coated (in my opinion) version of what to expect in the field, how to start thinking about the way you want to practice, the different styles of practices, and the options and processes that you'll have to undertake once you graduate. As for the CV, it is basically a "resume on steroids" as Dr. Hodges put it and because I've reviewed around 100 resumes with my experience with the Madison Investment Fund, the assignment proved to be a quick and painless one. Intro to Business is my favorite class this trimester because Dr. Hodges is the man. It's just an hour class where he passionately shares his experiences, answers questions, and I believe, gives us that "light at the end of the tunnel" as far as where/how we imagine implementing our skills in the workforce. 

Random Tip of the Day: For you future students, I would definitely recommend getting a tutor for the hard classes of each tri. I was ALWAYS one of those kids who said, nope I will learn it on my own and have always been somewhat stubborn in my studying methods, however a valuable and experienced tutor that knows what the teacher is looking for cannot be underestimated.

Rachel, who you will undoubtedly meet if you need help on this campus, tutors something around 7 classes and her insight is honestly worth every penny and multiplies my study effort when I get the big picture.  

See you next week! 

Hakuna Matata!