Who doesn’t like a good awards ceremony? Just ask Ant and Dec!
It’s been a strange month for my Cleve Chiropractic colleague Catherine Quinn and I.
We hosted the equivalent of the chiro Oscars, doing our best to impersonate the popular Geordie duo.
And I think there was just as much pressure on us. We were in charge of delivering and helping to host the national British Chiropractic Association (BCA) conference. During the past nine months, we’ve been heading up the repositioning and rebranding of the chiropractic profession through the BCA and have now launched this huge piece of work to the membership.
The project is much too involved to go into details here. Suffice to say, the take home message is that we want to support all chiropractors to put their patients first and practise with the very highest levels of ethics and standards of care. There’s a lot more to digest on this subject so, if you’re interested, please follow the BCA on social media channels.
During the conference, I was asked to represent chiropractic during an excellent debate with Jack Chew, one of the country’s leading physiotherapists, and Ollie Coburn, who is the registrar for the British Association of Sport Rehabilitators (BASRaT).
We considered the benefits of working alone as a practitioner in our chosen field. The thinking is that you get to learn more techniques to help treat many different conditions. That’s against working as part of a team of professionals but always with the same goal – doing your very best for the patient.
I’m fortunate to have worked both on a solo basis and within a team. During my first seven years as a chiropractor, I had my own business but also worked for Bath Rugby in the Premiership – so I enjoyed the best of both worlds.
During these early formative years, I spent some time dreaming of the ‘gold standard’ way of working in private practice – and always trying to answer the same question: what is the best environment in which to treat patients? I kept coming up with the same answer. The ‘professional sport way’ seemed like the best solution.
At Bath, every player would come and see me, followed by a visit to the physio and the sport therapist, then go to the gym with the sports rehabilitator, or out training on the practice pitches. They had access to the team doctor, pilates, yoga and a nutritional therapist. We had the first laser machine I had ever seen, with access to X-rays, MRI and ultrasound scans.
So back in the days of no kids or grey hair, I formulated a plan of interdisciplinary working with a big enough clinic that could house everyone and enough equipment to match an elite sports environment. During the next 19 years or so, I formed a ‘collection’ of experts who I knew I could work with.
The friends I made at Bath Rugby, then with Bristol Rovers, would become my future colleagues. These people are leaders in their fields and have hugely varied skill sets. They already respect each other and know how to work together effectively to give the patient the best possible treatment.
I saved hard to buy and build in stages. This enabled me to furnish my clinic and buy a full range of medical equipment. It’s not just about chiropractic gear – we now have an X-ray machine, 3 diagnostic ultrasound machines, 3 shockwave machines, 2 laser therapy machines, 10 chiropractic and physio beds, an anti-gravity treadmill and we refer out for MRI scans…I haven’t quite afforded one of those yet!
I believe we’ve made great strides but we’re still improving. Keith Graham, our lead physiotherapist, has completed his prescribing qualifications and can now perform ultrasound guided injections. We’ve taken on acupuncturist Jennie Abraham and we are about to partner with a very experienced nutritional therapist.
So you can tell that the conference debate sparked a huge amount of feeling for me as I proudly supported the idea of interdisciplinary working. I love what we’ve created with nearly two decades of hard work and determination. It means each patient at our clinic can be treated like a Premier League elite sports person, whatever their age, sex or physical ability.
Photo by Antonio Janeski on Unsplash
