How did my chiropractic journey begin? My first memory of chiropractic was being adjusted, along with my whole family, by Dr Jerry Whitehead at about the age of 6 or 7. I watched my dad literally crawl into his office and walk out what seemed like minutes later. A few years later, dad was told by a neurosurgeon to go home and do a month of bed rest, and if he didn’t improve, they would do surgery. After about 2 days in bed, he decided he’d go back to the chiropractor and has been under chiropractic care ever since. As a boy, I remember my mom writing a check to pay for chiropractic care for the family, then going to the boot repair shop to pay for his services and smarting off “ …if one of you could become a chiropractor and the other a boot repair man, we’d have it made”.
In high school, I injured my knee, and at the persistence of my grandmother (a retired RN and daughter of an osteopath who was run out of town in the early days), I saw her chiropractor for the knee (ok...she put me in her car, told me shut up, marched me in there.) Dr. Kevin Walcher proceeded to educate me on how my knee worked, what was wrong, and how he’d seen 14-year-olds heal without surgery. “Mema, what the heck does a chiropractor know about a knee?” Again, she encouraged me to shut up and see what happened. She wasn’t wrong. I set out to explore this whole healthcare career idea. I visited with our osteopath for a few days. When I asked him “if (he) had to start over and do it all again, would you?” He said he felt like a glorified drug dealer in a long white coat and said that he’d probably have chosen plastics or something that was a little more rewarding than what his practice had become. At least he was honest.
When I asked the chiropractors the same question, they laughed and said they couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I was so naïve; I had no idea the whole world didn’t receive chiropractic care like I did until I was already accepted to chiropractic school. I shadowed a few chiropractic offices, and at age 17 decided chiropractic was my path. In May 1998, I graduated from Parker College of Chiropractic. Upon graduation, I had planned to open a multi-disciplinary clinic with two classmates. They didn’t pass their boards. I soon figured out I was in over my head, and I started exploring the possibility that I wasn’t ready to make that dream a reality on my own.
It’s funny, looking back, I truly had no clue how over my head I was. I went back to a few of the clinics that I had shadowed, and I asked them what I should do. One owner said, “…go find a clinic like you want. Learn everything you can and either buy it or go build a practice just like it.” Don’t reinvent the wheel? I like that. I bounced around from one questionable associateship to another, not really finding the mentorship or training I knew I needed, although I did get to visit an FBI investigator within days of getting my shiny new license. One evening, after doing a “working interview” with a clinic in Mexia that was the epitome of everything you’d caution a young doctor about never doing, I called a classmate and vented for the better half of my drive back to DFW. He invited me to meet him for a beverage and he would introduce me to a group of doctors that he was working for. So, I drove to Plano for a drink with a friend, and while I was there, I met Dr. Mike Martin and a room full of doctors who helped shape the last 25 years of my career. They didn’t have a position for me, but they saw something in this 24-year-old doctor, so they gave me a shot.
“Have you ever done spinal screenings?” Of course I hadn’t. Later that month we screened every spine who would give us the time. What I didn’t realize is that one weekend and the subsequent weeks’ work jumpstarted their practices, and mine. Soon, they had no choice but to hire me to help take care of the bump in business. Soon I got to help fire and hire, and get intimate insight at what running a practice, while providing top notch patient care looked like.
In 2000, I married Kellie and founded Chiropractic Care Center of Southlake PC. As a true family-run business, Kellie has worked in the office as my right hand since late 2000. We are the proud parents of two wonderful daughters, who learned to crawl, walk, and talk in the clinic. They were and still are Chiro-kids… in and out of the clinic all the time (in fact one is getting an IV as I write this.) Both were huge referral sources amongst their friends, teachers, dance instructors, coaches, and teammates.
Family practice has always been our thing. In 2005, I tackled a 300-hour Diplomate in Acupuncture. Subsequently, I completed 125-hour Certified Chiropractic Sports Practitioner training. By 2009, I was frustrated with managed care comprising about 80% of my practice. Something needed to change. I had more training and experience, yet I was collecting less than ever. I had a quick visit with a colleague down the road about practice. He asked if I was a TCA member. “Why would I do that?” He explained that TCA is who can help make those changes I hoped to see and that instead of waiting on “somebody” to fix it, I should be part of the solution. I began to “plug in”. Eventually, I had a tough conversation with a certain Plano-based mentor, who helped me see that I needed to get really clear on my vision and start putting pieces in place to make that happen and he felt like I could play a big role in helping get some stuff done here in Texas. He wasn’t wrong.
From 2010 through 2017, I put my all into my practice family and my TCA family. In 2015, we began the process of integrating the clinic to include medicine. Southlake Physical Medicine, like the vision when I was a young grad, was one-stop conservative and effective healthcare combining the best of what each has to offer. As TCA President, I was able to maintain a clear vision because what we accomplished legislatively as Team TCA not only helped my practice, but every chiropractor for many years to come.
We have had some really trying times as a profession in my brief tenure and some amazing victories. Now, as I serve at the national level, I see so many similarities with what goes on in other states and federally that are “copy and paste” part of our journey here in Texas. Working in conjunction with leaders from other states with diverse talents and experience (and of course planting as many Texas leaders in the national garden as we can) is part of my current journey. I find that sometimes you’re the hammer, sometimes you’re the nail, sometimes you’re just another tool sitting in a room with other tools. Regardless, we were all put on this earth, and on this journey together for a reason... and the journey, to me, is the best part!
