Typical Day
Dr. Albert "Pops" Stiffenjoint has been a practicing chiropractor for thirteen years. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in physiology, he attended the prestigious Chiropractic School of Neck Cricks (motto: Making spines sound like bubble wrap since 1962), where he earned his Doctor of Chiropractic degree.
Once school was out he joined a nationwide clinic system, where he worked for seven years before starting his own practice. Pops realized that self-employment, while challenging and fraught with risk, brought with it the personal fulfillment and gratification of being able to sleep in whenever he wanted.
Pops isn't a morning person, and he never could convince his old clinic to open any later than 7:30AM. He doesn't need that kind of negativity in his life.
Pops has a full schedule today. He leaves his house at 8:30AM so he can open the clinic by 9:30AM and see his first patient by 10:00AM. Mixed in with all that is coffee, reading the morning headlines, checking in with his techs and assistants, reviewing the day's schedule, checking the latest copy of Chiropractic Quarterly for any new research, and making sure to spray disinfectant on all the chiropractor and massage tables.
As he peruses the Quarterly he notices two articles by M.D.s, one explaining why she prefers her patients seek chiropractic care rather than keeping them on medication for long-term pain issues, and the other claiming he would no more send his patients to a chiropractor than he would bleed them to remove the "bad humors." Apparently it's another when-will-chiropractors-be-welcome-in-the-medical-world-themed issue.
Pops sighs. This old argument just makes him tired. He's a pretty straightforward practitioner; he's an expert on body mechanics, doesn't sell vitamins in his clinic, is a big believer in modern medicine, and doesn't practice voodoo, burn incense, cut off the heads of live chickens, or whatever else skeptical M.D.s always seem so worked up about.
He also doesn't buy into applied kinesiology, which is the practice of trying to diagnose diseases by testing muscle strengths and weaknesses. It's a "discipline" no research study has ever validated but one that still pops up in the chiropractic world from time to time. So, deciding there's apparently nothing interesting in this edition, Pops sets the magazine aside. It's time to get going.
Pops' first patient arrives early, at 9:50AM. Mrs. Mulrooney is always early. Dr. Stiffenjoint has been treating her for a year now and she still insists on getting adjusted at least twice a week. Not that the clinic isn't glad to have the business (she pays cash), but they're starting to wonder whether Mrs. Mulrooney uses her chiropractor visits as some kind of de facto social life.
The problem, as everyone in the clinic knows, is her mattress. It's old—like decades old—and forces her spine into all kinds of wacky contortions while she sleeps, which is why she has back pain. No one in the clinic has been able to convince her to get a new one, even after showing that with all the money she's spent on adjustments, she could have bought several mattresses. Nope. She likes coming in, she says.
The next appointment is a mom and her two sons. They were rear-ended a month ago, which threw off the normal curvature of their necks. Mom has lost roughly half of her neck mobility. The boys are much more resilient (the perks of being younger), but Pops has been trying to make sure all three of them regain their normal curve. He can't go too fast though, because their muscles were pretty well-tweaked by the crash and too much jerking and twisting will strain them.
While adjustments will ultimately fix their neck problems, if they're done too aggressively it'll only exacerbate the pains. Sometimes treatment is a delicate process.
Next up for Pops is a U.S. Marine who recently returned from eight months in Afghanistan. It seems that rucking around the mountains in a combat environment with thirty pounds of equipment for weeks at a time is kind of rough on a person's back. Who knew?
After the Marine, it's finally time for lunch, which Pops eats in his office while reviewing some of the X-rays for his afternoon patients.
His secretary sticks her head in to let him know they're now only four weeks behind on getting insurance payments entered, and they'll hopefully be able to pay the electric bill on time this month. The good news makes Pops' spine straighten up a bit—though his posture is always impeccable.
The afternoon lineup involves: three more car accident victims; one construction worker; a retired postal worker; two runners who recently finished a marathon; a power lifter who overdid it last week; and a hypochondriac mother who is convinced her boys are developing scoliosis despite Pops showing her time and again that their X-rays look fine.
Pops and his staff close up shop around 7:30PM. As usual, they all lament that they can't afford to hire a second chiropractor, which would spread some of the load around. Next year, maybe. They did recently advertise for a masseuse and have two applicants to interview tomorrow. Pops isn't really sure how to fit that in with twenty-five patients on the books, but he'll figure it out.