The Ideals versus the Reals

It seems as if my ideals for the future may have gotten out of control this past quarter. I began ripping into the DC program because of the lack of training beyond musculoskeletal conditions and lost my focus. I ran to NCNM thinking this would be the answer and it wasn't. You have to really believe in naturopathic to be there because a lot of what they teach you is subjective. I read some of the materials about their classes and I felt they weren't speaking my language. Not to bash on ND's or anything, but some of the words were, "balancing with the cosmos..." and this was a natural pharmacology course I was reading about. Believe me, I get the treat disease differently idea but there are different levels which you can do this. For me, I don't need to align someone with the cosmos or find their Qi to help them find wellness. Some people need to do this because it is in line with their world view and that is fine.

Many professors and students told me it would be this way and they advised not to pursue ND school. I had to see it for myself and make my own calls. They were right. There is nothing at all wrong with the school or the profession. It is designed for a particular type of student. The students and professors at WSCC must know me better than I thought because they were right.

This all has been such a learning experience. I know I have been enormously critical of our program and at times I probably made some folks feel bad for speaking my mind. There is no perfect program, they ALL have issues - I have checked them ALL out. With that, I am getting exhausted writing about these silly antics. For me, the DC program will allow me to obtain the skills to form a kick ass rehab program and run/oversee a personal trainers and coaches. It is easy to get sidetracked with all that is thrown at you in a program like this.

It is time to start forming the idea and backing it by taking the steps to make it real. Nothing sucks more than not knowing what you are working for. The exhaustion sets in after a few weeks of sitting all day, everyday and it is hard not to bag on the school and the profession. For me, instead of ripping the profession a new one, I am going to save it and write about other things that are pertinent to starting a clinic.

I had a conversation with a chiropractor once about DC school and how his friend quit and went to DO school - he said his friend felt at ease in DO school. The rigor was less intense and there wasn't as much pressure to figure it out because he knew he was guaranteed a job when he finished.

I know there are others struggling to figure out their path at WSCC. I am sure there are many people who are worried their debt will be difficult to manage and with no business skills, this fear is escalated (there are some who have business skills). I am in the same boat. We have to take the initiative to get there and no 100k jobs await us when we graduate.

I think we should first manifest a well researched and logical idea for a clinic. Put together a list of equipment and expenses. I'd even go as far as visualizing the color of the walls! This way the program is easier to get through because every class will matter and will feel applicable in some small way.

Thanks for reading

NCNM Day Two

Today ended quicker than expected. My gut feeling during the morning was that I was wasting my morning sitting in this group of folks. I have nothing against the people, I just feel as if I am at a point in my career that is different than many of them. Most were coming in as freshmen from their undergraduate training, some had masters and ALL were women! Beside me, there wasn't another man in the room... Intimidating, for sure!

I was the only guy there among nearly 30 women. I felt a little out of place, sort of like the only guy who goes to the bridal shower or the baby shower. It was a feeling a minority would feel and I didn't like it. I started thinking if I quit DC school and start here, not only would I be adding 2.5 more years to my timeline in school but I would have to try and find a way to integrate into this female dominated school. Please don't get me wrong, I have nothing against women, I just feel a balance is in order to get a good education. And despite what people think, men need guy friends to lean on when they are going through the rigors of professional school.

This is what I have decided - I am not quitting DC school, I will search for seminars and additional training in my areas of interest, I am going to get the Masters in exercise science from WSCC and I am going to put my energy into my academics and the planning process for my clinic/fitness facility. I am meeting with some banker friends to sort out what they need in order for me to get a small business loan in a couple years and intend on developing my equipment list this weekend. Done!

There is a time in everyones life where you have to weigh out your options thoroughly and choose the best one there is. For me, DC school fits. I thought ND school might have more of what I want but as I learned it is WAY over the top with wellness. In my opinion, we need to be wellness oriented but if it is pushed too hard there will be resistance. I will have a wellness emphasis through nutrition but primarily through fitness training. Coupling this with rehab/chiropractic and you have a nice balanced program.

As I have learned through many years of personal training, people don't adopt dietary changes very well but they do adopt fitness changes as this is much easier to do. Through adopting fitness, clients unknowingly begin feeling better about themselves and start to strive for more and more healthy choices. The cycle continues and eventually they become thriving fit people who go onto to become successful in their community.

I don't belong anywhere else and it is time to quit looking because the thing I have been searching for has been directly in front of me this whole time!

All for now

NCNM's New Campus Clinic

Today I visited NCNM's new campus clinic. I was impressed by the organization and cleanliness of the place. The treatment rooms were quite spacious. The students from the ND program and the Classical Chinese Medicine program share the building. On the second floor one side is devoted to ND's and the other CC Medicine. I had the pleasure of getting a CC Med student as my tour guide and she explained the basics of acupuncture to me. It was surprising to learn how deep the needles are placed in the body. I always thought they were quite superficial but I learned today they often stick them an inch deep! Sometimes when working in the glutes they use 2-3 inches! Crazy. I suppose the depth is often left up to the practitioner, where they penetrate the tissue to the depths of the Qi?? Interesting. When asked about how she knows how deep to go she simply said you "feel" it when you've tapped into the Qi... I asked her if the idea stems from elements and molecules being attracted to the metal and she said the idea isn't about that at all. Even though this could happen as a secondary effect.

I spoke with a recent ND graduate about the program and it's intensity. He told me his story is quite different the regular student because he did the dual degree in both programs which was around 35 hours of class a week. I told him we were doing about 36 hours a week at DC school and he seemed amazed. Tomorrow I am heading to participate in a campus tour and to learn more about this different approach to healthcare.

I am attracted to naturopathic because it's tenants are similar to my background in personal training, in that their goal is to help people take responsibility of their health and to increase wellness in those who live healthy lives. It definitely digs deeper into physiological therapeutics than DC school because they focus on balancing the body from within.

I learned ND's do quite a bit of adjusting too. This was quite shocking because I thought only DC's, DO's and PT's adjusted. But, I guess their goal is to help folks obtain structural balance too. It seemed to me the profession is heavily based in prevention. The good stuff.

All for now

Too Much Time to Think!

As the break gets going, I find myself sitting in the quiet stillness of my living room, strumming the guitar and wondering why I am thinking about neurophysiology and gram negative bacteria. The thoughts jump from one to the next without any interruption and I ask myself, without speaking of course, how can this be normal? How can I go from thinking about the amygdala to an antibiotic, vancomycin, and act as if these are normal thoughts? It is funny to sit in silence after all the mental obstacles that had to be managed in the past weeks. I can't say that these quiet days are really that quiet.

Even though it is hard to find new things to do to occupy my time, I am enjoying the down time. There is a feeling that something is always due and if I sit too long I am not being productive enough... On and on it goes. Hopefully, by the end of next week or this week perhaps I will be cured of my mental woes and life will return to a "normal" state.

I wonder if normal can ever be achieved again after all that has been absorbed from our classes? Going through a program like this where every thought is racing through your mind and anxious chemicals cause symptoms such as sweating, shortness of breath and increased heart rate is taxing. We mustn't take the stress for granted. There is a definite reason we should keep going through this torture but if we don't unwind and return to a dose of nothingness, we'll be victims of heart attacks or mental disorders (like me...).

Since I have nothing to do I am going to visit a few clinics in town this week and keep an eye on how they've set their clinics up - treatment rooms, reception, personal office space etc. The more I can see now the easier it will be to set up my own clinic in about two years from now.

I am also going to visit the naturopathic school and sit in on some of their classes as well as spend some time at some of their clinics. I have this aching desire to check it out to make sure it isn't my calling. Now is the time to figure this stuff out and even though I'd love to sit back and sip brews all break, I know there is much to do. I will drink brew but there are some things I need to finalize prior to starting 2010. Regardless, I am here at WSCC for the next term through quarter 5. I figure with the experience at NCNM and their clinic system, and having 5 quarters of DC school under my belt, I will know which is right for me.

All for now

The Past Athleticism and Future Ambitions

Have you ever found yourself daydreaming about the past experiences which led you to the current reality you now exist in? Lately, I have been doing just that - thinking about the good-0l-days of racing my road bike at the elite level.

During those days I also owned a popular training business I called Spangler Training Systems. I linked it up with a local chiropractor and had an office within his building. The town I lived in was only roughly 60,000 people in size - Flagstaff Arizona. Flagstaff was a hard town to make a living in. It was cut-throat, being the only substantial entity in town was the university, Northern Arizona University, Gore Tech and the medical center. The people were quite liberal for a small town due to the massive amount of university employees and nearly 20,000 students who called Flag their home. The experience was unique because I was heavily involved in the cycling crowd as well as the wellness movement.

I think back to the days that I could leg press 1,000 pounds and sprint at 1,500 watts for 45 seconds and it seems like a dream. What was driving me to train and compete? Why was it so important to me? I honestly don't know. I can say that those days were about personal discovery versus proving I was the best. There was definitely an ego boost when I won a sprint or tore the peleton apart from strong pull but my intentions were to be a professional and my life consisted of doing all I could to achieve this goal.

I learned early on that others who were trying to just get fit could benefit from training similar to how I trained, at a minor scale, of course. I applied the training fundamentals I used to develop endurance and shed body fat to the general public. They were very happy with losing body fat versus weight and my reputation spread like wildfire.

Every Wednesday night during the summer the cyclists would get together for a local criterium race at a nearby park and race laps for about 30 minutes then do a long base-pace ride afterwards. I would show up after working with clients all day and sit in the pack drafting until the race was nearing the end and I would make a dramatic move attacking from the group and winning the race! It was a great feeling having such power and strength beyond what my fellow cyclists had. I would ride back to town, change and begin working with my evening clients.

When my time in Flagstaff ended I learned a valuable lesson and that lesson was to get a professional level degree so that when I return to continue my legacy I will be there until retirement and beyond. You see, my education level during the time I owned the training business was quite pathetic. No bachelors, no formal hands-on training to speak of. The DC that screwed things up for me is still in business today in the mid-west. He had his education and a huge cash flow to allow his existence to continue. I want that back.

I began this journey in 2005. It is now nearing 2010! By 2011 I will be ready to transition back to the world I once dominated as an athlete but with a program unheard of in Flagstaff. I will be there to stay and build a lucrative, long lasting training and wellness business.

When Sadie and I were in transition out of Flagstaff, I told her we'd be moving back in the future. There is a lot to still get done before this can happen but when looking back at what all has transpired between now and 2005 when it all began, the next year and a half will likely fly by and within a year I will be winning the sprints again and helping elite athletes find their own personal greatness!

Keep dreaming

Now What?

We finished the quarter off with a bang having 10 finals and a horrendous end. Our EBP exam was insanely hard! This exam was probably the toughest I have taken in my life, no joke! Conceptually, this exam was the epitome of confusion, it could have been the definition for the word, confusion!

Now that finals are complete I am trying to figure out what I want to focus on during this two week break. I will likely rest and recover from the abuse of the past 10 weeks, soak up some fine brews and sweat my ass off trying to keep up with Sadie on a mountain bike, but it will all be in good fun!

A good friend of mine is leaving chiropractic school to venture into osteopathic. Osteopathic, for those that don't know, is an equivalent degree to an MD. Roughly, they are trained in similar settings, under the rigors of pharmaceutical inundation and scalpels. It seems like the profession pushes the "wellness" movement as an ideal they think was manifested solely by their profession but in turn, publicly practices mainstream medicine. My point is that DO's have to go out of their way to be CAM practitioners after their mainstream training. Orthomolecular medicine is one such entity. If you want to practice wellness, I don't recommend going into medicine because wellness isn't found through the approach medicine advocates!

To be different takes guts. I find this in my current class of chiropractic students. They have noticed I am not "normal". Funny as this may seem, I try not to be normal because I find normalcy boring and isolating. Reliance on the "pack" gets you no where in life. When I say pack, I mean cliques. You can look at it from many different perspectives, religions, cool crowds etc., all behave similarly when surrounded by their fellow pack-members. Isolating the different ones out.

The real world is more complex than this, I realize that. Nothing can explain the awkwardness of DC school. There are some who want to be physicians who don't have the grades, some don't care about grades and think academics are a waste of time and others are overachievers who see the world as their personal skating rink. Regardless, the path to get the degree is arduous and significantly difficult to obtain. Everyone must meet certain standards to be successful.

My hope is that quarter number 5 will be more brotherly, in that we become a closer knit group with less judgement and more cohesiveness.

We will see.

What a Tiresome Lifestyle

Finals are here and boy is the pressure on! Eight finals down and two to go before freedom is found. It is tough having to be in GO MODE for a straight week without much down time. The dark circles are getting grayer and many slobbery mouth's are thirsty for a relieving beverage. It is torture, brain burning pain!

These are the sacrifices we make. A little bit of pain for a whole lot of gain. Looking back after all is said and done, we'll laugh and cry and be very proud of our accomplishments. The hurdles are many and the days that loom ahead are long but the goals will always allow us to prevail. It is our dreams that run the engine inside and nothing else. Well, there are some who just want to make a bunch of money but after going through the pain and suffering of 4 quarters or 40 weeks of this schooling, I think some money is deserved.

With that I will end tonight's post. I hope everyone does well on their last final exams tomorrow.

Adios

Pardon My Silence

Something struck a cord with me in our clinical topics course on Friday. Granted, it was the end of a long week but I left school a little confused and quite bitter.

Ever since this program started it has been a battle of trying to forget my past business ventures with my fitness studio and starting fresh with this chiropractic path. Having worked with numerous patients and clients already and having to behave as if I haven't is arduous. It is honestly driving me crazy. I am not saying I know it all but I do know this can't go on very much longer.

I am a little concerned when a professor sits in front of the class demanding that everyone participate in a ridiculous discussion on how we are going to explain a subluxation to a new patient or an MD. I find this so damn annoying that I sit there fuming inside desperately wishing it would end. My eyes watch the minutes pass by on the clock to my left and my ears ring with the professors loud obnoxious voice demanding the "quiet" ones speak up on their thoughts about the subluxation. Give me a fucking break! Seriously, is he for real? I am paying him to teach me something not to allow everyone a chance to explain what a joint restriction is.

It is so incredibly bothersome to sit and listen for an hour to everyone explain what a subluxation means to them and how they plan to explain it to their future patients and counterparts. Why there is any leeway on this subject is ridiculous and obsurd. I can see administering a nutrient with hopes of bolstering the immune system or to decrease inflammation as an alternative to allopathia, but administering a spinal adjustment with hopes the nervous system is freed up to do its job and cure the illness is ludicrous. How a school that claims to be evidence based allows such stupidity to continue to exist is very difficult for me to accept. The problem with chiropractic is in the schools. Now, if one were to say there is a psychosomatic relationship to laying ones hands on another's back, I would say there is more evidence for that then the prior. The concept of relaxation is the inverse of sympathetic overstimulation which DC's can affect with their work.

I am honestly so damn tired of hearing about the subluxation, what a subluxation is and why nobody can agree on what it is that I am seriously annoyed. The restrictions in our vertebrae don't cause all disease. They cause some kinds of disease but not all. We are merging into a therapy-based profession and not a wellness-based or even alternative medicine-based profession. Physical therapists are now doctors and portal of entry professionals. How are we different then they are? Our evidence is quite similar to theirs... Hmmm... Science is weird isn't it.

What is it that we offer that makes us any better? From the looks of it, we have a much different educations then they do. We get much more science in the beginning and way less time treating patients. They are more focused on therapy throughout the entire educational process then we are. So, why be a DC if we are evidence-basing ourselves into physical therapists? I am just curious? I know we have a history of being "wellness" based doctors and not just therapists but if you really look at the manual medicine side of things there isn't much difference between PT's, DC's and DO's. Eventually, I see the professions merging somehow into a unified profession.

The reason I entered chiropractic was not to become a doctor or a therapist. I entered to learn more about health and I was excited about the supposed emphasis on alternative health chiropractic advocated. Learning that wellness consists of a straight-spine in the chiropractic world is depressing. In my opinion, this is not alternative health.

I know there is a place for manual therapy but our nation needs a real alternative to the allopathic model. One that supports the natural processes we all possess to obtain wellness.

For example, on a personal note, my brother is slated to have his gallbladder out in a couple weeks. I have been searching and searching to find a different way to help him without having him go under the knife. The reason he is sick is systemic. From what I have read the gallbladder is not the culprit, it is the liver. Actually, it is the crappy food being processed for many, many years that has created huge stones in his gallbladder from the processed chemicals being sent from his liver. Now, if a person learns that their diet and behavior caused their disease and there were ways to reverse the damage by making changes and applying natural cellular support via intravenous nutritional therapy, would that be a better way to address the real problem than to cut out his organ? See, this excites me! So many people have unneeded procedures done that could be avoided and treated from a different perspective. This is alternative healthcare!

Is it in our scope as DC's to do this? In my opinion, our education is heavy on the musculoskeletal system and this education sets us up to be musculoskeletal specialists. This emphasis is why we shouldn't venture into other areas of health without more training. When some DC's do take this path without more training they end up buying into a technique system which is centered around correcting the subluxation as the path to wellness. This makes the musculoskeletal doctors look like shit in the public's eye and to the rest of the healthcare world.

I will update with my brother's prognosis when I learn more. Who knows, he might end up having to have surgery because it is too late. However, wouldn't it be wonderful to learn he avoided it altogether and made headway on living a life of wellness and avoidance of these kinds of issues for the future?

I know this kind of work isn't for everyone and most of my colleagues are here to become musculoskeletal doctors, which I respect. And honestly, I am digging the adjustive skills I am learning. They are so applicable to alleviate aches and pains everyone experiences. I love performance and I love learning ways to gain advantage over the competition by way of nutrition and physiological boosters. Now, having access to the wonderful world of IV therapy would really help me play the game I love. As DC's we can't push fluids via IV therapy, which sucks! We will be trained to take out fluid with needles but we can't put them in. I wish there was a way to link the ND program with the DC program and get the extra training while I am here in DC school versus going an additional 2.5 years at ND school when I finish.

If I have to, I will go the extra distance beyond the DC program. I don't think I will jump ship and go to ND school now. I am too far along and they don't accept credits as readily as I had hoped. Once finals are over I am going to try and make headway to get a program linked with the local naturopathic college here in Portland. I might see what interest there is in this by sending a mass email to the student body, if I get permission that is. :)

Time will tell. What is great is that the process of being in DC school has opened my eyes to the endless opportunities out there and I am pretty confident my education up to this point has been pretty top notch minus a few glitches (professor sludge in my mental cog set).

All for now