Chiropractic question...?!
Question: I have been looking at enrolling in a Chiropractic college. Can anyone tell me if this is a good profession to get into both financially and as a rewarding career?
Answers: I have been looking at enrolling in a Chiropractic college. Can anyone tell me if this is a good profession to get into both financially and as a rewarding career?
Chiropractic can be a rewarding profession, but you should really do your research. Here is one link that can help you make a decision. It is a study conducted, looking at trends in health care, and its effects on the chiropractic profession. When I enrolled in chiropractic school, my idea of what I was getting into was the treatments of sports injuries. My old chiropractor is a big, well known in the profession, rehab and extremity guru. In reality, the school I went to, the "Harvard" of chiropractic colleges, focused mostly on different "techniques" to manipulate a spine, teachers laughed openly about evidence based being BS, how you can "check the nervous system" with a little hand held thermal measuring device, how some mysterious "Universal and Innate Intellegence" flows all around the universe, enters your body through the top of your skull, goes down your spine only to be blocked by a subluxation, a bone out of place.
This all came up about a year into the program, after the pretty good gross and neuroanatomy classes. Basically, they gave us a bunch of good science, then after we were "stuck", because of the student loans and time investment, they started feeding us all the "quackery." I started looking into Osteopathic schools, but in the end, I didn't want to start all over again from the begining. I didn't realize at the time that it probably would have been worth it.
Needless to say, I hit PubMed hard looking for evididence of manipulative therapy. There is a plethora of it being done by chiropractors, physical therapists, and medical doctors. Hurray for SMT. That being said, the only evidence is for back pain, neck pain, and headaces; and limited evidence for other things. My second link will take you to the website of the organization that is researching our Best Practice Guidlines, and I must say that they are encouraging. I try to incorparate these guidelines and the best evidence based medicine for musculoskeletal conditions that I can, and I am retraining myself with a post-grad orthopedics program to boost the core skill I learned in chiropractic college. That being said, chiropractic college was very poor at teaching me much beyond anatomy, but luckily for me I spent thousands of my own dollars to take extra seminars and classes beyond the "basics."
However, I am extremely disappointed with the profession as a whole. No one can agree on anything, there is a constant battle between the "straits" and the "evidence based" groups, with a lot of docs caught in between because they really don't know what to do. They have families to feed and this is what they know.
The fact that we have "straits" that believe their "adjustments" can cure anything from "acne to zoster", and yes, those very words were spoken at some time to me by a "teacher," really irritates me. I thought I was joining a serious profession, but the way these people are fighting over something that should be as simple as yanking away a license to practice because of fraud (using your cultural authority as a doctor to tell people that they need to pay X dollars up front for X amount of care to remove interference from the nervous system so your organs will function properly, and you need to "maintain" these "treatments"indefinately) is to me unacceptable and we should be policing our own to discourage those types of mills.
Do you really want to get involved in all this? I could go on all day. If you want to go to a chiropractic college, National University of Health Sciences is your best bet. A couple other schools are good as well. Unfortunately, there is a widespread belief in metaphysical "health" phenonema in this profession. If you can accept that, you will be happy.
I cannot. I am lucky I had a great internship before graduation where I spent 4 months with one of the professions researches, sat in on some spine surgeries, did rounds with the neurologist and a neuroradialogist. I love what I do, that is, I do an increasingly thourough orthopedic and neurological exam as my skills get better, I find problems that I would not have found if I only relied on my basic education.
I get people better for the most part, and this is satisfying. But I can't recomend my career to someone. I would recomend checking out a Doctor of Physical Therapy program, or Osteopathic or Medschool, and then specialize in PM&R. The PT's have a plan to be the musculoskeletal specialists "of choice" by 2020. They are pushing for direct patient access. They are organized and motivated, I believe they will meet their goals. Chiropractic, on the other hand, still can't decide if we are musculoskeletal specialists, "holistic" doctors, subluxation only treaters, wannabe medical doctors, or what not. I am lucky I don't have a family to feed, my wife makes good money and wants to go back to grad school, and my schedule will allow me to do the same thing, so we will be studying at the same time. I am hedging my bets and getting a non-chiropractic degree as well, either a DPT, MPH, or some other program that I can still use my current education, but still have a future.
I hope this extremely long rant helps.
i've heard it's great
I see a chiropractor 3 times a week for a back problem and he has done wonders for me. From everything I have read they are the second only to an MD and they are growing. It would be a great profession for you to go into at this time. Like all things it will take time to build up your practice but if you are good to your patients they will tell others and they Will keep coming back. My chiropractor's is doing so well he needs to buy the lot next to him just for more parking space, and he is what most people would still consider pretty new. Just remember, word of mouth is your best advertisement so be good to the people who come to you for help.
Chiropractic can be a very good profession, but depends a lot on where you intend to practice. Many areas of the US are totally saturated, and if you think you'll just move to Hawaii and open a practice, forget it.
The best opportunities are in Europe and other countries, where Chiropractors are much in demand. Don't get in too much debt either, and ignore shyster salesmen like Chuck Gibson or other practice management gurus stealing your money so you can "get rich" with their schemes (which don't work anyway, I can guarantee you).
There is no substitute for being good at what you do, working hard and being honest with your patients.
I love mine.
My chiropractor seems to do well financially.
The MDs in the social circle tease the DCs about having a fun profession because they experience instant gratification, having patients walk in with pain, walk out smiling and laughing!
He supplies a lot of data to me because of posters like Charley Horse, and there are several.
The main study will be bookkeeping, business management, advertising, and ability to convince people that you can actually help them while laughing all the way to the bank.
Chiropractory is a scam. Pure and Simple.