When I applied, it was a brand new program and no one in the VA knew much about chiropractic. I think I was approximately the 16th chiropractor in the country hired by the VA. But my thought at the beginning, and what still engages me in the process, is that it was an opportunity to serve a population that I have a lot of respect for. I think, in a way, this is my service.

So if a student, or a practicing chiropractor, felt called to this kind of service, the fact that they themselves had not served in the military would not be an impediment.

Not at all. And that is the same for the Department of Defense program, which is different and separate from the VA program. But again, there is a preference for veterans but no limitation to it.

How do you see the VA chiropractic program as expanding the role of the chiropractor in society?

When you graduate from chiropractic school, your main option is to put your shingle up on the wall somewhere, to open up shop as an independent businessman or businesswoman, an entrepreneur. You end up creating your own island. Your patients come over from what we might call the coast and the mainland, they come to the island and get their treatment, they leave, and they go on with life. But generally there’s very little collaboration with other professionals or even other chiropractors in the area. That’s been the traditional model of chiropractic practice.

We’re now in a situation, whether economically driven or because of patient demand, where we have an opportunity to extend beyond our island. This includes the VA, as well as other programs where we’re starting to see chiropractic introduced in settings where there have not traditionally been chiropractors, such as multidisciplinary clinics or pain management clinics. To me, the key to the future is to expand that area of the chiropractic profession. There are also educational opportunities that we might see as a result of our involvement at the VA. I know it’s a dream of some of us in the VA that we develop a true postgraduate residency program. We’re hopeful that that may come to fruition in the near future.

Is there anything else that we haven’t talked about that you think would be important to let people know?

I think that the VA program is having a tremendous impact on our profession. We are serving people that are in desperate need of chiropractic access and we’re increasing services to that population. It also is doing something that I think is very important for the profession in that it is exposing the profession in a different perspective. How many times does the chiropractic profession have the opportunity to interact with medical students prior to their graduation or medical residents that are going to go out there and be the potential referring sources to chiropractors in the field? And so there are, I am sure, pockets within our profession that see this as chiropractic heresy, that we’re “mixing with the enemy” in some regard. I really believe that chiropractic needs to be expansive, and look at ways that we see the modern health care system not as an enemy combatant to our profession, but rather something that we need to integrate in. We’re still going to have those isolated islands, those practitioners that go out there and do a fantastic job, and all their patients love to come visit their clinic, their island, if you will. They’ll continue to go and live productive lives and that’s great. But we need more options than that and so I see the VA as being a groundbreaking experience for us.