Will You Help Me?

I have had considerable success each year in practice, although that is not to say it has always been easy. Nonetheless, I have consistently found myself confronted with “good” problems (need more space, need more staff, lots of doctors applying for jobs, etc), rather than bad ones (not enough patients, poor patient outcomes, need money, etc). At the same time, many of my friends and colleagues tell me that they are struggling with “bad” problems.
I consider my desire to help others as one of the foundational components to my success and happiness in practice. This fact alone is probably not unique. I would guess that many chiropractors attribute their success and happiness to a desire to help others—particularly their patients. And I certainly share that desire to help my patients. However, I actually attribute much of my happiness and practice success to my desire to help other chiropractors and the chiropractic profession. I have found that when I put my attention on helping the profession, things go very easy for me in practice.
I think that almost every chiropractor would do something to assist another chiropractor or our profession if they felt that they could do so. In talking to other chiropractors, I have found that the one most common barrier to doing something for another chiropractor or our profession is that they feel consumed with their own problems, especially in practice—leaving them with no time to worry about another’s.
So what can you do about that? Well, my successful action has been to solve the problems of other chiropractors and our profession. I know it probably seems counter-intuitive, but it works. Each time I have decided to help another chiropractor, or to take on a project for the Maryland Chiropractic Association, or the ICA, or a research project, or anything else along the line of expanding chiropractic, I have had an immediate return on my investment with regards to more happiness and prosperity in my practice and in my life.
That brings us to this article and its title, “Will You Help Me?” As my next project to help another in our profession, I have decided to begin sharing my successful actions with the profession through articles such as this one. I have decided to break this article into two components, ‘Theory’ and ‘Practical’—since my interest in getting something done exceeds my interest in merely entertaining you with my article.

THEORY (Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines ‘Theory’ as “the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art.”)

The Theory behind this idea is that if you decide to help the profession by helping another chiropractor or contributing to some project or solving some problem facing the profession, you will be happier and find more success in practice. I can’t say that I know this is universally true, but it wouldn’t be a bad thing to agree with, right?
If you agree, then here is what we can do about it. Keep in mind that if you don’t like the practical that I have given you, then choose some other activity. Regardless of what it is you do for your practical, if it helps the profession, it’ll help you personally. But also keep in mind that the magnitude of the return you’ll get will be somewhat in accordance with what you do to contribute to the profession.

PRACTICAL (Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines ‘Practical’ as that which is “designed to supplement theoretical training by experience.”)
Here is where the rubber meets the road, where we separate the men from the boys—or whatever other analogy you want to use to describe the fact that this is the point where it can, and often does fall apart. We all probably can remember chiropractic students who knew (theory) about everything but couldn’t apply (practical) themselves one bit. And if you’re that student, well, that’s okay because you can start bringing an end to that problem now by doing this practical.
You may find this very easy or it may be difficult for you. If it does seem like too much, then just take on whatever part of this you can comfortably do now. Then once you get that part done, do another, if you so feel inclined. If my practical is way too easy for you, or you’ve already done it all, then make up your own practical that would be right for you. Either way, if everyone reading this article does something to help the profession, then 2009 is going to be great for all of us!

THE ASSIGNMENT
Remember, you can do one, more than one or add your own. Just keep in mind the reward ratio mentioned above!

1) Go online at www.ICABESTPRACTICES.ORG and complete the survey for these new chiropractic practice guidelines. Your input is needed to make these guidelines the best they can be. It could take as little as 30 minutes to read the summaries of the chapters. However, the more thorough you are with your review, the more valuable your feedback may be.
2) Call a chiropractor and schedule lunch with him/her. Make this call to someone that you wouldn’t ordinarily call. Maybe it is someone you can help in some way. It could be a chiropractor who is having personal or practice problems or it could be a ‘competitor’ in your area you’ve never really spoken to. If you think that there is no help that you could bring to another chiropractor, just realize that by getting to know another chiropractor a little better, you will actually help the chiropractic profession become more of a group—and that would be very helpful to everyone!
3) Join a chiropractic association. Decide where your membership is best invested. If you are currently a member, well done on that! If you are a member of your state association, but not a national/international association (or visa versa), then take that step and join. It is vital that our associations have as much support as possible. If you’re not sure which to join, find out what the different associations have done for the profession—look at the facts, then make a decision to join the ones that best supports chiropractic.
4) Call your state association and find out how you can help. Most associations are running off of too few memberships and off the work of even fewer volunteers. You can create a huge impact with just a small amount of time. You may be able to come to their next meeting or maybe there is a project that is being done that you can help with. Don’t be surprised if you don’t get a huge welcoming response as most association volunteers and staff can see over the heaping pile of work they are trying to do. They may also be in shock that some has called them to offer help. No association has 100 percent membership or too much money, so there are at least two projects that can be done—and there are many, many more, I can assure you.

Thanks in advance for your help. I’d love to hear your wins. You can email me at doctorhuntington@hotmail.com.