Field Doctors

I took a trip to Boise this past weekend. With President's Day off school and the clinic, it felt like a great time to drive down to Boise and visit with my family and a few field doctors.

It was interesting to sit and chat with my potential preceptor friend because he has been in practice for 19 years and he has a particular way in which he practices. I was happy to see how busy he was. He told me he sees about 120 patients a week. This is about 30 a day since he works only 4 days a week.

I met this doctor in 2008 by becoming one of his first patients in his new clinic. He had just moved to Boise that year after spending 16 years in Seattle practicing. I was excited to learn he was a graduate of Western States, because this was the school I had my eyes on. Through his first 6 months of opening, he became busy quite rapidly. In fact, he was over 100 visits a week after his 2nd month! The guy knows how to get patients to adhere to his plans and he is one of the best adjusters I have been adjusted by.

As we chatted, I learned that he only adjusts people and does his best to stay away from physical therapy modalities and rehab. He told me that he loves adjusting people and he thinks that is the chiropractors role as a health care practitioner. He isn't against other approaches, but he feels this is how we should practice. I disagree with this approach because it corners you into relying on one set of tools and one source of income. I heard a lot of talk about keeping patients in the system as long as possible and I witnessed one of his associates tell a patient that the reason she was crabby was because she was "subluxated". Not cool.

The associate complained because his numbers had dropped from 100 to 50 in the last month. In my opinion, it is because he is trying to convince people that the subluxation is the root of all their problems. If he focused on health versus a sales pitch, I bet he'd get busier. Weirdly, he has been practicing in Boise for 9 years and his numbers are slipping. You'd think the numbers would climb and maintain after a while once you build your reputation.

The doctor that is going to be my preceptor is a bit different than his associate. He still adheres to the theory of the subluxation but he is a very personable guy. Even though I know I have feelings against this style of practice, I still think I can learn a lot from him just based on his communication skills and of course, he is very good at chiropractic adjustments.

It was a good visit overall. I still believe if we focus entirely on adjusting, we are missing the boat to many avenues of opportunity. Adjusting is important but there are many, many other areas that are just as important, of which, could be sources of revenue for us and easily delivered ethically.

All for now