How to Pick a Good Chiropractor
By Dr. Tim Fargo, Chiropractor
I have some good news and some bad news on this question. The good news is that most chiropractors are artists and, like artists, each of them paints and sculpts a little differently. This is nice because we, as a profession, can care for a wide variety of patients. The bad news is that, because of this individualism and variety among practitioners, it can be difficult to find someone who meets your needs and has the skill and integrity required. To give you an example of the variety that you might confront when looking for a chiropractor, I will say that there are some who are very traditional and only do spinal adjustments. Others add extremity work and work with athletes. There are still others who confine themselves to the care of women, babies, and children. Some chiropractors focus almost exclusively on nutrition and functional medicine. Other chiropractors focus almost entirely on neurology. Some adjust by hand and others use only instruments. Some focus on structure (posture and architecture) while others focus on the tone of the nervous system. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.
I think the first thing to do is to clearly identify what it is that you would like to accomplish in visiting a chiropractor. For example, a friend of mine, just this morning, asked me about a chiropractor in South Carolina. He said that the patient was an 11-year-old girl, a tennis player who had injured her wrist. The chiropractor about whom he was asking specialized in Applied Kinesiology, which I happen to know is very effective in working with extremity issues and with athletes. Under these circumstances, this would be a great selection.
Another thing to do is talk to a chiropractor that you already know and trust. Hardly a week goes by when we, at Chiropractic Health and Wellness, are not looking through our network to find someone who would be well suited for a patient who may be going on vacation, moving, or who has been injured while out of town. We all have networks of doctors that we trust and to whom we can send people. The same is true for every chiropractor. If you don’t know any other chiropractors, then feel free to contact us and we will always do what we can to help you.
Another good way to pick a good chiropractor is to talk to the people that you know in your area. Your friends can tell you who they see and what they like about the doctor, or why they think the chiropractor is good.
Do a search on the Internet with specific keywords for the condition which is afflicting you. You can also, if you already know about a technique that you like, search for someone who does that technique. As far as Internet searches go, we have found that the primary thing that patients look for is proximity and then reviews. Look for someone who is close to you and then dig deep into their website and read their reviews. I would love to tell you that if you did that with Chiropractic Health and Wellness that every single one of our reviews is five-star, but sometimes a bad one will pop up. Look for the balance of the reviews and read the stories that people tell.
A “good” chiropractor is one who always puts the needs of his patients first. He or she practices a number of different techniques which allows him to care for patients with a variety of conditions and special requirements. A good chiropractor is a perennial student and so you will see that they have taken time to educate themselves, not only on the basics of chiropractic, but also on things like nutrition, rehabilitation, exercise, ergonomics, and more. A good chiropractor is one who is grounded in a philosophy and purpose in what they do. It doesn’t matter what school they went to, nor even the particular technique that they practice. What matters is the earnestness with which they approach their craft. I have trained literally hundreds of chiropractic students, have had 150 interns, and about 30 associate doctors. I’m not going to say that every one of them was “good”, nor that they would become so. I think, as with most professions, the vast majority are just okay, a smaller percentage are “good”, and an even smaller percentage are truly excellent. The truly excellent are difficult to find, whether we be talking about chiropractors or bricklayers. I think there is much to be said for using all your senses and your intuition to find someone who will resonate with you, listen in the way you need them to listen, communicate in a way that creates understanding, and then does the job of a chiropractor in a thoughtful manner. I think you use all the mechanical means that we have discussed above and then, in the end, you find someone who resonates. That’s how it gets done. Enjoy the variety.
