Tri-7 Wk5 Day 422, Friday - ChiroMission

kinda exhausted ...it's after midnight and I just got home about 40 minutes ago. Today was definitely interesting. Geriatrics is always informative then Activator class was downright amazing. It's literally almost like magic if you aren't aware of the neurology going on behind the scenes. For our third and fourth hour today we had a nice two hour lecture by Dr. Martin P Gallagher who is both an MD and DC which was absolutely fascinating. He was another one who advocated having chiropractors as the primary doctors seen before MDs. It makes a lot of sense both from a nonmaleficence (do no harm) point of view as well as from a fiduciary perspective. I know there was a state that delved into this and did save a great deal of money as well as providing excellent health care but ended up reverting back to the old health care model.

In one study that analyzed date from 85,000 Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) beneficiaries in Tennessee over a two year period found that low back pain treated by a DC saves 40% on health care costs when compared with care initiated through an MD along with higher levels of patient satisfaction. It was a great talk by Dr. Gallagher and I wish I had my recorder with.

After the lecture I had to get recertified in CPR. I kept compressing too deep on the dummy hooked up to a computer so finally, the technician thought maybe I should try the CPR compressions with one hand. She'd never seen anyone do that before but it seemed to work out well.

Irene Gold National Board reviews came next, from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. good stuff there as well. We mainly covered radiology tonight. After that I headed on over to Harpo's, a bar in Chesterfield, to help support a couple of classmates who are trying to raise money for a ChiroMission. They will be going to the Dominican Republic to offer health care for a 5 day period in March. Today's picture is of me with one of the ladies from my class that will be making the exciting journey. :)

One sobering part of the evening came during a break at the Irene Gold session when I talked with a fellow student who was doing his senior internship at the office out in St Peters. I know the upper tri students used to only do one day a week at their outpatient clinic and then that was bumped up to three days per week. I learned there are also weekly clinic meetings that need to be attended then heard from my classmate that they figured they would probably be at the clinic everyday. I'm not quite sure how well that's going to fly. Making that drive 5 days a week will mean about 600 miles of driving plus, I've got plenty of weekends booked with school related activities and classes. I could easily be looking at the equivalent of at least two good nights sleep in terms of the amount of time I'll be driving.