Why I Became A Chiropractor

Sorry guys for the late blog today. A new year means alot of new paperwork with insurance companies and it can get a little overwhelming at times.

I was thinking this morning of when I was 11 years old in 1976 at Palmer Chiropractic Lyseum (Homecoming) when I attended with my Dad, Mother, and Brother. It was a different time in chiropractic's history. What I mean is, you've heard how dictators conquer nations by limiting resources to that nation letting its leaders fight among themselves so much that the dictator walks right in time and just takes over that nation. Well, that's what's happened to our profession. The insurance companies, with the help of government agencies, have cut the resources of benefits to the chiropractors that they are now fighting among themselves trying to get each others patients, etc.... In 1976, every chiropractor had more of a wellness practice, before that term was developed, and essentially all patients paid cash with no insurance benefits until the 80's. So, there was no limited resources, no fighting over patients, trying to out advertise one another, filing board complaints, etc..... The list can go on and on.

This is the time when I remember how much fun it was to be around other chiropractors, and their families and kids. That is when I decided to become a Chiropractor! After all, my Dad had lived thru much tougher times in Louisiana, the last state in the nation to license Chiropractors and Osteopathic Doctors. In that time he was extremely close, as all chiropractors were then, to each of the other chiropractors in the city of Shreveport, where I was born, and the state. But, that's another story to be told at a another time.

I had been approached by my chemistry teacher, Mrs Jackson in high school, years later asking why I wouldn't be a DO instead of an DC. I told her that the DO, Doctor of Osteopathy, next door was never home, his kids didn't get to see him and he looked so stressed with that pager on his hip all the time. ( History be told, I found out a few years ago that he had committed suicide about 5-6yrs ago. No wonder he was so stressed looking. I don't relate that to the profession of Osteopathy, but I can't help but notice the unhealthy and unhappy lifestyle.)

So, as time has proven to me, I am very thankful to be a Chiropractor!