Volunteering is THE way to get experience

No matter where you are in your curriculum, you are preparing to start your career in chiropractic and looking forward to living life after school. When you get out of school, you are well accustomed to going to class, studying, taking tests and having a break in between quarters or semesters until you come back and do it all again. There are many facets to life outside of chiropractic college, and it would be advantageous for you to give some good thought to them.

Chiropractors have a multitude of things we think about during any given day.

• Running the front office area: dealing with cash, insurance, personal injury and worker’s compensation patients
• Managing employees and staff (i.e. massage therapists, back office help, etc.)
• Patient procedures in and out of the office
• Managing patient cases
• Marketing
• Chiropractic software and automation
• SOAP notes, charting and filing systems

Don’t sit there and become overwhelmed, because you have the power to take control of how you learn about this stuff.

Remember those days of high school? When it was time to get your high school resume polished up and rounded out to apply to college, one of the main things that came up was “volunteering.” We have all done it to try and get into a better college or put us in a position for a better shot at a job.

You might remember exactly what type of volunteer work you have done in the past. Was it candy striping in the hospital? Being a camp counselor? Serving food at a homeless shelter? Whatever it is you did, and I am sure you did something, it is time to dust off that old thinking and find out how you can volunteer in chiropractic.

Some of you may be thinking, “I don’t have to worry about all of that because I am going to work for Dr. So and So right after I get out of practice.

Everything is set up for me so I am taken care of.” It was amazing to me how many of my friends that I began chiropractic college with in first quarter told me a nice story like that. However, by the time we were halfway through our curriculum, almost all of them had those plans fall through. Hardly any of them actually worked in the practice they thought they would once they graduated.

You make your own luck in this world. By honing your skills and exposing yourself to all kinds of things in the chiropractic world, you will shape your vision of how you want to practice. You will also have good and bad experiences that will teach you lessons on someone else’s license.

Some areas to think about volunteering:

• Front office biller – get exposed to insurances and how the staff deals with all of them.
• Receptionist – get phone, people and communication skills that are vital to being a doctor.
• Back office aide – see different types of therapy modalities, adjusting room setups and patient flow.
• Exam doctor – makes you efficient and exposes you to lots of common presentations.
• Rehabilitation therapist – learn different ways of exercising and rehabbing conditions.

Use your mind and look around at the instructors and clinicians you have at school. Most of them have private practices. Could they use help? If you really enjoy and respect your teachers, ask them if they allow students to volunteer and do it. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Now go out and get yourself more experience.