The healthcare profession has seen its profession of through drastic changes in the last few years. For a variety of reasons, many have chosen to leave the field, and others have decided not to enter the stressful and costly field of healthcare. Although the problems and changes in the healthcare field affect all kinds of doctors and staff, it is especially important that we pay attention to the numbers of graduates enter the field of chiropractic care.
Consider the following scenario. Are recent graduate from a large midwest college began his freshman year knowing for certain he wanted to enter the healthcare field. He was also fairly sure that he did not want to follow in the footsteps of his father, a chief perfusionist at a large midwest hospital nearly 500 miles from a similar service. While the open heart surgery assistant position paid really well, the young freshman in college also understood the toll of the long hours his father worked. Having to always be on duty for any and all heart surgeries, the chief perfusionist rarely has a time when he is not working or on call. A series of attempts to add a second person to the staff merely allowed new perfusionists to hone their skills and move on to a bigger job in a bigger city, or the new staff to realize the hectic and stressful schedule was not for them and leave the field. No, the new college freshman was certain perfusion would not be his career.
This same college student also has two uncles and a cousin who are chiropractors. They have told him about chiropractic coaching programs that helped them decide to enter the field. By the end of his junior year he had decided that he would go onto graduate school to be a chiropractor. This would allow him to reach his goal of being in the health field and enter a profession focused more on patient care, than emergency surgery situations. Many chiropractors work in a solo or in a group chiropractic practice. A large number of chiropractors are even self-employed. Thorough chiropractic coaching programs can help this young man practice the medicine and care he loves, but also share the work with a staff of other doctors or run his own clinic and determine his own hours. Studies show that 80% to 90% of people suffer some back pain sometime in their life and that care for this pain and discomfort equals approximately $50 billion spent on back pain a year. On paper, the training for chiropractors seemed like a study he would excel at and a career he would enjoy.
In reality, however, a career in the healthcare field is never that simple. Even the best schools can not completely prepare young chiropractors for the yearly changes that seem to affect all healthcare workers. If this young man wants to be truly successful in the field of chiropractic care, he will also have to be well-versed in a variety of of other areas, including chiropractic marketing ideas and chiropractic practice management. Any person preparing to enter the healthcare profession needs to not only have passion, but also a support group of peers and mentors willing to offer chiropractic coaching programs for support.