Hey folks! The
year is just flying by. My classmates and I are officially done with 12
quarters (3 years) of Chiropractic College, and are graduating in less than 5
months!! This has been such a wild experience. It is very fun to go back and
read the past blogs I have written from close to three years ago and just see
the growth, the maturity, and the change in focus and perspective from each
year. Allow me to catch you up on the past several months.
As previously mentioned, my classmates
and me sat for the National Chiropractic Board Exams (Part 2 and 3) in March.
We got the results a while back, and similar to Part 1 results, my entire class
had a 100% pass rate! It was a very exciting time and we are still joyful
simply due to the fact we never have to take those exams again. Every week that
goes by at school, I have peers from lower quarters ask me about my experience
and for all the advice I can give. I gladly give them as much guidance and help
as I can, and at the same time thank God that I only had to do that once. It’s
a stressful, expensive, and time-consuming phase of your career/life. It takes a toll on your loved ones and your
patience. Once again, I am very thankful to be done and be one step closer to
becoming an Upper Cervical Practitioner! With three board exams down, I only
have two remaining. I will be taking the Physiotherapy exam in September and
Part IV board in November. Those are the final two steps that stand between me
and that diploma that seemed so far away for so many days, but is now becoming
a reality faster than I can actually grasp.
If you read my blogs or ask anyone in Chiropractic
College, their focus for the first two years of school is straight book work.
You take 8-9 classes Monday-Thursday and sometimes Fridays, and study the
majority of the weekends. Your focus isn’t on patients (although it should be),
or setting up your practice (although it should be), or any business practices
at all. You are just trying to get through the constant multiple choice and
short answer tests that are written and underlined in red ink on your calendar.
Once you get past that part, it is sort of a mini-graduation in the fact that
the class load reduces drastically. However, now your main focus is on
fulfilling all of the clinic requirements you have to do within the next 1.5
years and seeing your patients. So, for the next 6-9 months, you get bogged
down with all of the paperwork, procedures, and protocols in order to take care
of your patients in the most efficient way. After this past quarter, I feel
like am now in a make believe 3rd stage of my academic career at
Chiropractic College. I’ve done the class work; I’ve done what I needed to do
in order to be successful in clinic, and now come the logistics of becoming a
doctor/business entrepreneur. Yes, I still have two classes this quarter, and
yes I am still doing work in the clinic, but I feel like “I have been there,
done that.” I feel that I need to be focusing on other stuff like opening up my
business so I can help a community that doesn’t have Upper Cervical Care within
100+ miles in any direction. Therefore, in my free time, instead of studying or
doing paperwork, I am learning about running a business. I am learning about
commercial real estate, taxes, accountants, marketing, and budgeting. The thing
is I don’t enjoy any of this. All I want to do is put a sign on the door that
says OPEN and check as many people as my body will allow me to. Plain and
simple, that’s not the case. I find myself up at night several times thinking
about ways I should do this or that when I should be sleeping or doing
something fun and enjoyable. So, to bring it all around, it just floors me how
even 3-6 months ago, I wasn’t even thinking about ANY of this stuff, just class
and clinic work. Now, every time I step in the doors of Sherman College, my
mindset is completely different and set more towards what is to come instead of
the present. Whether that’s a good thing or bad thing, I don’t know. I just
wanted to express how it’s amazing in a few weeks, your entire mentality
changes with this program. And trust me; I’m not the only one. My classmates
are going through the same cycles/thinking processes and are making their
preparations as well. I guess its all part of the journey that we call
Chiropractic school. This world is sick. This world is hurting, and the sad
thing is, people don’t know how to get better. They take a drug, a new
medication, or just learn to suffer with it. They don’t know about Upper
Cervical Care. It’s a tragedy. That’s OUR job. Not just for Upper Cervical
doctors, but for YOU patients as well. Tell people the story. Tell them how the
human body is absolutely amazing. If it is free of brainstem interference, it
can heal, grow, strengthen, and prevent itself from breaking down and BE
HEALTHY and BE WELL.
In addition to this past quarter, I have
taken two part-time jobs on top of going to school. I’m working as a community
assistant for my apartment complex doing external marketing and maintenance
work 3 days out of the week and some weekends, and umpiring little league
baseball/softball on other weekends. I took these two jobs to stay busy as
school is beginning to wind down, to get some more money due to the fact there
is no guarantee I will be able to get any secured loans for my practice in a
few months, and help pay for my upcoming wedding and honeymoon. I have enjoyed
the two jobs thus far, but please don’t make any mistake; I am more than ready
to solely be an Upper Cervical doctor. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to
get where you’re going. It’s all part of the journey, right?
I forgot to mention the classes we took
this past quarter. Here is a list of the three classes:
Clinical Case Management IV
Diagnosis Review II
Communications: This 48-hour
lecture/participation explores effective means of communication to develop the
skills needed to communicate chiropractic principles effectively and
accurately, utilizing all forms of media, including newspaper, radio,
television and Internet.
That’s it! Two more classes and I
will be done! I will be taking a Research class and the Exit Exam class. The
exit exam consists of 9 different tests to show competency of the intern in
several areas of study and is the last barrier between student and graduate. I
am excited for all that my classmates and I have accomplished these past 36
months together. We took a multiple choice exam in one of our classes the other
day, and I just stopped in the middle of it and chuckled to myself thinking,
“How many times have I sat down and taken a multiple choice scantron in
complete silence with these same 7 other people?” We have done it hundreds and
hundreds of times together. I don’t want to say I am going to miss it by any
means, but we have done it so many times that it’s surreal that it’s almost
over. I’m excited of all that we have gotten through. I’m excited of what we are
doing, and very excited for what the future holds! The countdown is on! Ready
or not world, here we come. And ready or not Wilmington, NC, here I come!
Until
Next time,
God Bless,
Josh
“And we know that for those who love God all
things work together for good, for those who are called according to his
purpose.” Romans 8:28 (ESV)
No comments:
Post a Comment