With dramatized TV shows all over the place now, we have a pretty good idea of what a Medical School student goes through during their schooling and residencies. We hear about the different ups and downs of law students constantly reading tons of books and preparing for their Bar exams. However, does anybody really know what a student goes through to become an Upper Cervical Chiropractor? This was a question that was thought up by my mentor and really good friend Dr. Chad McIntyre of Triad Upper Cervical Clinic in Kernersville, NC. He wanted me to document my experiences as a student going through the 3.5 years of post-graduate work in order to become an Upper Cervical doctor. The program consists of 14 quarters (instead of 7 semesters), so I wrote a blog or diary entry before the start of every quarter reflecting on the past, present, and future. Looking back now, it cracks me up regarding what I decided to write about back then, but that’s where my mind and heart was at the time during the journey. The program consisted of many ups and downs, mountains and valleys, and a lot of sacrifice and time away from my loved ones. But, it was all worth it because now I have the blessing of bringing the power of Upper Cervical Care to anyone wanting to take control of their health in a natural, safe, and scientifically proven way of doing so.
As
predicted and told about by upper quarter students, 5th quarter was
much easier than 4th quarter. It went by extremely fast and it was a
lot of fun to start working in the health center and get out of the main
academic building for parts of the day. Here is a list of the classes we
completed over the past few months.
-
Neuromusclular Physiology
-
Neuropathophysiology
-
Gastrointestinal/Renal Physiology
-
Upper Cervical Rationale- This 24-hour
Lecture course details the philosophical and physiological rationales for a
specific focus on upper cervical subluxation correction. Emphasis was placed on
why C1 subluxations were so detrimental to the body working at 100%. We spent
more time in the cadaver lab looking at how C1’s muscular and ligament
attachment anatomy is far different than any other vertebra.
Here is a picture of the two bones in the upper cervical spine that protect our inferior brainstem.
-
Tumors/Arthritis
-
X-ray Analysis I- This 60-hour
lecture/laboratory course is designed to instruct the student in visual
analysis, line analysis and neural canal studies, and to correlate these with
spinal biodynamics and malformations in order to obtain accurate listings of
vertebral misalignments in the cervical spine. Basically, we just looked at and
analyzed x-rays every day. It was a very fun class as we got to see the many
different ways that atlas and axis can misalign. This shows the importance of
why upper cervical chiropractors all use x-rays in their offices.
-
Full Spine I
-
Pattern Analysis – This was a rather
unique course. We learned how to become proficient in several analysis tests
used in order to determine when or when not to make a correction to the upper
cervical spine. Specific concepts learned were leg checks and the thermograph
readings. During this class, we also had to do a small research project. My
partner and I did a study on the differences of the scans between morning and
night. Basically, we were trying to prove that the scan doesn’t work as well as
we think it does. By scanning in the morning and evening and looking at the
differences with no adjusting done, we thought they would be pretty different.
Our original reasoning is that our body operates very differently at different
parts of the day. Circadian rhythms of every cell have a 12-hour ON switch and
a 12-hour OFF switch. Also, our parasympathetic system and sympathetic system
plays a sort of tug-of-war game throughout different parts of the day and
night. Turns out, our results had no credible data to our hypothesis and when
you’re subluxated, you’re subluxated. The scan does work, and it is a very,
very helpful tool to tell us when or when not to adjust.
This was a great quarter! It was very relaxing and a lot
more stress free compared to the others. I explained earlier how the odd
quarters seem to be easier while the even quarters tend to be more challenging.
This is definitely holding true through my experience thus far. So, with less
studying going on, my classmates and I had a little more free time. Coming back
from summer break, it had been a while since we all hung out outside the walls
of Sherman College. Therefore, we planned a camping trip for the 2nd
weekend of the quarter. So, all the guys in my quarter (and four guys from
quarters above else) joined us in skipping all our afternoon classes on a
Friady, and we left for Clemson, SC.
So, we get to the lake, and innocently crack open a beer
to celebrate the weekend. Keep in mind every single one of us was well beyond
the legal drinking limit (as we are all graduate students, some of the guys
even have multiple kids). Within minutes, we have three cops telling half of us
to get out of the water, and the other half in the parking lot to throw away
the beer. Turns out it is illegal to bring alcohol into a state park. So, we
just explained to the police how we weren’t aware that the lake was a state
park and they very kindly let us off without tickets. It was very funny because
at the time we were all just saying to ourselves, “We had been here 5 minutes
and we’re already in trouble.”
But, that was the last of our troubles. We finally got
onto the lake, 10 guys, and 10 guys’ stuff all loaded down. We got to the
island to set up camp and then ventured back out onto the lake for the next
several hours where we would find an awesome rope swing and huge rock cliff to
jump off. I was extremely hesitant to be the first one to jump off this rock
(the guys said it was about 30 or so feet above the water). But, once two or
three people jumped, I dove right in. Then, my classmates started doing back
flips and I was done, haha. No need to break my neck if I want to correct
people’s necks, right?
Once we got back to camp, we began grilling out and
enjoying throwing the football around and just hanging out. After dinner and as
the night began to wind down, we were all EXHAUSTED.. you would think a bunch
of guys in their mid-upper 20’s would be up all night partying, right? By
10:00, everyone was falling asleep (we’re so used to getting up so early in the
morning and being at school for 8-10 hours). So, we start waking everyone up
and we go across the lake to a golf course up a hill. It was a treacherous
climb as we all had flip flops on and were carrying golf stuff. We enjoyed a
little midnight golfing on the putting green and then headed back.
One thing NONE of us thought through was that it was
mid-July in South Carolina… HAHA. It was 90 degrees outside and extremely humid.
Once we got in the tents and tried to sleep, the temperature quickly seemed to
be 120 degrees. I would stick my head out of the tent just so I could breathe
better every so often. I tried going to bed around 1:00 am, and did not fall
asleep until about 3:30 or 4:00 am. And I woke up at 7:00 because the sun was
so bright. It was miserable. Everyone else had similar problems, but I’m a very
light sleeper and need my nice, foam mattress.
So, the next morning, nobody is feeling that good due to
the lack of sleep. We ate breakfast, did some swimming, and then headed home.
By the time we got home back to Spartanburg, it was around 5:00 pm. I just went
to my bed and PASSED out until 9:00 or so. Then I was wired the rest of the
night.
So, in summary, it was an amazing time. It makes you
really appreciate the people you have been working with and getting to know so
well. The thing is; we hang out 40 hours a week at school and all we do is talk
about chiropractic. It’s even better when we’re outside of school, in the
middle of nowhere on some island, on some lake, and we just get to be guys
again. By the way, we did some extreme tubing and almost everyone HAD to be
subluxated by the end of the weekend. I didn’t get thrown off at all the first
day. The second day, I got tossed off going really fast and got the wind
knocked out of me from hitting the water so hard. It took about an hour for the
pain in my chest to go away. And that was our great camping trip. We hope to do
that at least twice a year until we graduate. However, we will definitely plan
the time of year a little better for the next adventure.
Back to academics, I noted earlier how we took our first
Full Spine adjusting class. This class is learning how to adjust the cervical
spine only (C1-C7). All of the moves involved some sort of twisting, lateral
flexion, or extreme rotation of the neck. I was very frustrated the first few
weeks that we had to put the neck in such compromising positions to deliver an
adjustment. There were many issues that were frustrating and rather puzzling to
me in this class. One of them being the analyzing of a subluxation. In the beginning of class, one
of our professors will introduce the move we will be learning and then demonstrates
it on one of my classmates. Our
professor only uses his hands to see if they are “subluxated,” he feels for a
lump, and then he cracks at it… he doesn’t do motion palpation, muscle,
thermography work, or xrays, And then after all that, I ask people in upper
quarters about it, and they tell me it’s possible to be able to feel a
subluxation just with your hands in under 5 seconds… and I just smile and
listen to what they say, even though I strongly disagree in most cases. Also,
the developer of chiropractic would strongly disagree and say it is negligent
and careless to rely on what you subjectively feel when it comes to someone
else’s health. It just doesn’t make sense… I think God planted a fire in me for
Upper Cervical, because that is the only thing that remotely makes sense to me
at this point in my career.
Over the
break, I started reading two GREAT BOOKS. Both of them, I highly recommend.
Number one: What Time Tuesday by James Tomasi. I believe you can order
it online for fewer than 8 bucks! It’s a short, 50 page testimonial book on how
Upper Cervical Care literally SAVED a person from committing suicide. A few
Upper Cervical corrections later, the victim of a very dangerous disease is
completely pain free and becomes one of the world’s most renowned Upper Cervical
advocates. A must read! Book number two is Tuesdays with Morie by Mitch
Albom. A fantastic book based on a true story of a student who visits his
college professor after the professor is diagnosed with one of the worst
diseases known to man; Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
Why do you ask that I chose to read Tuesdays with Morie? Well, I told
you earlier that we recently completed a class called neuropathophysiology.
While learning about all of the dozens upon dozens of disorders throughout the
quarter, the one that really struck my interest was ALS. It just seemed so
interesting, yet unimaginable to ever have to go through or a love one go
through. After spending a good portion of one of our classes talking about the
disease, our professor strongly encouraged us to read Tuesdays with Morie
if we had any spare time. Immediately, it caught my interest. In undergrad, I
had a mentor/boss who was very passionate about this book. During staff
meetings, he would always begin with a reading from what Morie instructed to
his student to help give us not only encouragement, but perspective on bigger
things. During my last year in undergrad, Greg (mentor/boss) bought 15 copies
of the book and had ALL of them signed by the author Mitch Albom himself. He
gave it to us during one of our staff meetings, and told us to promise him to
read it sometime in our lifetime. I took the book and threw it on my bookshelf
thinking to myself I’m too busy to read that and that’s one book I will never
read. It wasn’t until two years later I finally opened up the book with Mitch
Albom’s signature telling me personally to try it, learn it, and remember it. I
am now very grateful that my mentor spent so much time trying to get us to
learn new perspectives and see life in a different way compared to how most
culture or society sees it. And, I finally fulfilled that promise to my mentor
of reading it when I told myself I never would. I thank him for always
believing in me and wanting to make me better. Speaking of this book, I want to
share a quick passage with you all about patience and aging that the professor
advised to his student in Tuesdays with Morie that really struck home
with me.
Professor:
“And in addition to all the miseries, the young are not wise. They have very
little understanding about life. Who wants to live every day when you don’t
know what’s going on? When people are manipulating you; telling you to buy this
perfume and you’ll be beautiful, or this pair of jeans and you’ll be sexy—and
you believe them! It’s such nonsense.”
Student: “Weren’t you ever
afraid to grow old, I asked?”
Professor: “Mitch, I EMBRACE
aging.”
Student: “Embrace it?”
Professor: “It’s very simple. As you grow, you learn more.
If you stayed at twenty-two, you’d always be as ignorant as you were at
twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It’s growth. It’s more than the
negative that you’re going to die, it’s also the positive that you understand you’re going to die, and that
you live a better life because of it.”
Student: “Yes, I
said, but if aging were so valuable, why do people always say, ‘Oh, if I were
young again.’ You never hear people say, ‘I wish I were sixty-five.”’
Professor: He smiled.
“You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that
haven’t found meaning. Because if you’ve found meaning in your life, you don’t
want to go back. You WANT to go forward. You want to SEE more, DO more. YOU
CANT WAIT UNTIL YOU’RE SIXTY-FIVE.”
Awesome stuff, huh? Embrace aging. Embrace the gifts God
gave us and continues to give us.
Last thoughts until I embark on 6th quarter:
“Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall
fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they
shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they
shall walk and not faint.”
Isaiah 40:30-31 (ESV)
I will write again at
Christmas time at the conclusion of 6th quarter! God Bless!
Josh
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