The Alberta College and Association of Chiropractors (ACAC) is celebrating its centennial this year and I had the privilege to attend the Centennial Gala event held in Calgary last May.
It was a great pleasure to meet some of the leaders and members of the chiropractic community in Alberta, all of whom have been very welcoming. I also got a chance to chat with two of the more senior members of the community: Dr. Murray Bowman, 92 and retired, and Dr. Metro Kuruliak, who has been in practice for 60 years to date. They are two of the few chiropractors today who have lived through the many transformations the chiropractic profession and practice have undergone through the years.
They both started their careers at a time when chiropractic was the subject of ridicule and negative propaganda, when the medical profession and other uninformed entities were calling chiropractors “quacks.” I can imagine it would have been easier for them to just give up and find another more acceptable profession – but they didn’t.
Instead, they both did everything they could to continously upgrade their knowledge and skills so they could provide their patients with the best outcome possible – outcomes that their medical doctors were not able to provide.
When Bowman realized that the education he received at the time from Palmer College was not sufficient to sustain and grow his practice, he made a commitment to learn something new every year. He continued that commitment until he retired from practice.
Even after 60 years in practice, Kuruliak still makes it a point to attend local, national and international conferences to keep abreast of the latest trends and techniques in practice that he can apply to his own patients.
And that, really, is the advice these old-timers would give their younger counterparts. “Help your patients, first and foremost, and never stop learning.”
Their knowledge, clinical skills and their commitment to the well-being of their patients were their defence against the detractors and the ignorant. The patients they helped became their advocates and advertising agents. This is the formula for their success in practice.
That sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?
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