EPISODE SUMMARY
Guest: Dr. Russell Goff
Dr. Russell Goff was introduced to Chiropractic through his Dad, who had a shoulder injury. Because of chiropractic, he didn’t have to have shoulder surgery. Dr. Goff’s mother suffered from severe headaches after a car accident and was helped after traveling 6 hours to receive Upper Cervical Care.
Dr. Goof felt a call to go into the healing professions as a chiropractor while in ministry school. Physical healing plays an important part of the Christian faith, so it felt like the right next step.
In this episode, we discuss:
Chiropractic is a science, philosophy, and an art.
What is straight chiropractic?
Chiropractic is not for pain relief but for better function.
Health is not linear.
The Epic technique.
Sherman College of Chiropractic.
How to find the right chiropractor for your needs.
How to find the right school if you’re a student or potential student.
Using time, treasure and talent to help others; Doctor or not.
Contact Dr. Russell Goff:
https://www.facebook.com/dr.russell.goff
E-mail: rggoff@sherman.edu
Sherman College of Chiropractic
htucker@sherman.edu - Hannah Tucker's email. The organizer of ROAR
To contact Ruth, go to https://www.blairclinic.com
ruth@blairclinic.com
https://www.facebook.com/rutelin
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome, welcome. welcome to What Pain in the Neck. I am Ruth Elder, your host, and in this podcast episode I am currently recording it in South Carolina at Sherman College of Chiropractic, and I'm across from a conference table from Dr. Russell Goff.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me and being here on campus.
Yes, I'm so excited and thank you for setting aside time in your day to talk to my listeners.
Yeah, well, I greatly appreciate you being here.
Thank you. So why don't we start by introducing you? Who are you? Tell us what you want about who you are, what you're currently doing. Maybe a little bit about your background, your family, and then leading into what led you up to chiropractic.
Perfect. Well, I'm Dr. Russell Goff. I graduated here from Sherman in 2019, so it was just in time for the world to end with the pandemic.
Oh, my goodness. What a timing.
Yeah, I graduated in December, and by March, you know, the world had ended. So it was an interesting time to start my chiropractic career. But it was it's a great journey. It's made me who I am today.
Can we back up just a little bit?
Sure.
Why did you choose chiropractic as a career?
Well, you know, a lot of chiropractors, they say they didn't choose chiropractic. Chiropractic chose them. So after I started high school, I grew up in Wyoming and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do for college. And I was called into the ministry. So I went to ministry school out in California for two years before I started college. And I had opportunities after my second year of ministry school to work in five different continents and 17 different countries. And I was like, I was in prayer. I was like, “God, where where do I go? Like, how how do you choose a country, let alone a continent?” And I was in worship, and it's one of the few times I've heard the audible voice of God. But when I was praying, you know, “where do I go?” He said, “I become a chiropractor.” I don't come from a chiropractic family.
Had you been?
I've been under care. So we've been under a straight chiropractor. He went to Palmer.
Straight chiropractor?
Yeah. So it's truly just the adjustment. So adjusting for the body to be able to heal itself. So above, down, inside out, truly allowing the brain to be connected to the body. He did a membership practice. It was very much the adjustment only because the way he practiced was the body can heal itself. It just needs no interference. So that was what I grew up with, starting when I was about 13 years old. So I was familiar with chiropractic, but it never was a career choice I was looking at.
When you were 13 had something happened that -probably at that time your parents to bring you in.
It was believe it or not, it was my dad had a shoulder issue and he was trying to avoid shoulder surgery. And this chiropractor is like, “well, you know, if you're seeing me, you probably should bring your entire family in.” And and that was my introduction. So I didn't have anything wrong with me. It was just it was the right thing to do for our family with our health care journey.
Yes. That is something that I wish every parent would understand, that if you have a spine, it should be checked from time to time. What you think about that?
That's exactly right. I mean, the misalignments in the spine that break down the communication from the brain to the body, a subluxation, if you're not checked, you don't know if you have them or not.
So it doesn't mean that just because you go means there's something wrong with your spine. But just like going to the dentist and have regular physicals, the spine is so important. We need to take care of it.
That's right. And, you know, a lot of times these misalignments start when you're a child and the bumps and bruises you get when you're walking around or even the birth process. So the only way to know if you have a subluxation or not is get checked. So that's that's what my family did.
Yeah, that's that's good. I'm glad to hear that. If there is a problem early on, the sooner you fix it the smaller deal it is, right?
Yep. And so the chiropractic care helped. My dad didn't need shoulder surgery.
That's good. And thank you for picking the story back up where you left it. U2
From that point I went to ministry school out in California. I went to Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. So on the charismatic side of things, I grew up Methodist, but I knew there was more to God than what I was getting in church. The Jesus that I was learning from in the Bible was the same Jesus he is today. You know, there's there was more access to healing. There was more access to a personal relationship with God. And so I went out to California and went to ministry school. And, you know, it was very charismatic and very much out of my comfort zone. But I knew the presence of God was there. And so that was really my journey into the healing arts, if you will.
So what I'm hearing you say is you feel called by God to be a healer.
Right. And it was part of my ministry journey. When I was in school, wWe traveled around the world and did ministry trips and we prayed for healing. And I have seen just from the power of prayer, healing of a blind eye, I've seen legs grow out, I've seen arthritis dissolve out of a hand right in front of me. Like crazy things that can't be explained in the medical world or the physical world because God decided to show up. And it was because some kids took a risk and be like, “Hey, I want to pray for you. And if the Jesus of the Bible is who he says he is, there should be an access to more than most churches are getting.” So that was kind of my first dabble into the healing arts, if you will. And chiropractic is now an expansion of that healing capacity going through school. My sister also came through school. You know, we wanted our offices to be a place of healing, you know, whether or not they even got adjusted. Like if someone comes into our office and they're just in the presence of God and the Holy Spirit, just presence in the office, we expect them to be healed. Like cancer fall out of the body, hearing restored, not even because of chiropractic, because of the presence of God. But what's even better and more fulfilling is the fact that we get to put our hands on our patients. In those in-between moments, definitely in prayer, you know, for not only the physical healing through chiropractic and the nervous system, but on the spiritual level as well.
Chiropractic is a science philosophy and an art. And then you're talking about the spiritual. So can you just - so how you see it how does all of that fit together?
Right. So chiropractic itself is a philosophy, science and art. And it starts - if you look at the 33 principles of chiropractic, the major premise says that the world is organized and that there's a power above us that holds all that organization into existence. So from any point below that, just saying that there is organization in the world. If you go above that into the the metaphysical spiritual, you're going beyond chiropractic. So at that point, you know, when you're praying for healing or you're looking at what created the universe or some of those more metaphysical things is beyond chiropractic. That's where spirituality, religion, that's where that sits. But when you get to the point of I know there's organization in the universe anywhere below that. So human bodies, the physics that hold everything together, anything tangible that's below the major premise, just saying, “yes, there is organization” that fits within chiropractic.
And so that's where the science fits?
That's what the science, the philosophy and the art of chiropractic sit. Between that line of - just knowing there is organization. If you go above that and looking for something more, you are going into the metaphysical, the spiritual, but below that is all within chiropractic as a practitioner and in the healing arts. For me, being a very strong Christian and knowing that my patients can be healed not only through the the physical but the spiritual. It's a very fine line, you know, to maintain that not only in my practice but in my personal and spiritual life as well. In a lot of chiropractors, they get a little sloppy, if you will, between what is chiropractic and what is religion. And then some of that comes from our history.
So blurring the lines is what you're saying?
Yeah.
And actually, one follow up question that came to my mind is you felt like a call from God to be a chiropractor. Do you feel like that it's necessary to be a Christian, to be a chiropractor?
Definitely not. I know a lot of atheist chiropractors that don't believe in anything.
So there's a lot of atheist chiropractors.
I know some atheist chiropractors. Chiropractors that don't believe in anything, but their understanding just has to say there's organization in the world. Like if they can get to that point of saying, “yes, there's organization that holds all of reality together,” that's really all you need to “believe in” to be a principled chiropractor or a chiropractor that understands the true power of chiropractic.
We know how you decided to become a chiropractor. So if we picked your story up from there. So you decided you wanted chiropractic was for you. And then talk about the journey of enrolling in school, what you learned. Somewhere along there, you found this thing called Upper Cervical?
Yeah. So, you know, the calling to chiropractic was more spiritual for me. But the journey to upper cervical care was more of a personal story.
Can you tell that story?
Yeah, I'd love to. So when I was in undergrad, on my way to getting all the credits needed to become a chiropractor, my mom was in a very minor car accident. She was turning left out of a car wash and her truck was turning left out of a hotel and her front bumper caught his Dually Axle, the double axle on a truck. It was a very minor car accident. It wasn't they weren't going fast. They were both slowly turning left.
Famous last words. Oh, my goodness. We see so many terrible stories. It was nothing but.
It was nothing but
The car wasn't damaged but what about the person?
That's exactly right. Mom, slowly er not slowly, but it was she hit her head against the side window. She lost consciousness. The truck ended up being pulled along the side of the road. I was actually going to undergrad in the same town and she's like, I got a call saying, “Hey, Russell, I was in a very minor car accident. I think I need help getting into the hospital.” What the world? And we live in a little town, you know, only about ten minutes from anywhere. So she didn't want to get a ride to the ambulance and pay for the cost. So I ran downtown, picked her up, went to the hospital. All of her medical checks were clear. We did the MRI, did CT, nothing was broken. You know, the typical crisis checks, which thank God we have the medical system for those crisis moments. But they didn't find anything. We're like, “cool.” Nothing was wrong and she was going to be fine. Well, over the next weeks and months, we started to lose mom. She became very anxious. She no longer like to be around people. We got to the point where even interactions with us kids in the morning was just too much for her personally and just grade too much anxiety for her. So she would wake up at 3 a.m. make breakfast for us and then go back to bed. And then we would wake up, have breakfast and go to school. We were personally losing mom.
Oh, wow.
It was just a very, very dark time and we weren't getting any answers. We were under chiropractic care this time because Dad had already had his shoulder stuff and we went to that chiropractor and he helped most of the time. But sometimes it made it worse and sometimes it was better and it was just - she wasn't getting the results she needed.
Yeah, it wasn't consistent or permanent or in any way.
And it wasn't because that chiropractor was wrong. I mean, he gives fantastic care. It just wasn't the specificity she needed with her injury. And at that point, we didn't even know what we were up against. My parents were kind of - they were at a loss. They didn't know what to do. And one of my dad's colleagues said, “Hey, I know it sounds crazy, but there's an upper cervical doctor that adjusts with sound down in Denver.” So this is a six hour drive from us. And he said, “my wife was in a very similar accident and she was able to start getting relief and care from this doctor down in Denver.” So my parents being at a loss made the six hour drive down there. And after mom's first trip to Denver getting Atlas Orthogonal Care, I could tell we were getting mom back anait's a very - we were flat losing mom.
I think that's that's what's so important to understand is when you help people with an injury or an accident. It's more than - Yes, you help with pain, but this is what we see over and over. And it's part of my purpose of sharing these kind of stories is you're saying you're losing her and you don't mean that she was literally dead.
She wasn’t physically dying.
But she wasn't the person that you knew and loved and everybody knew.
And she wasn't able to be who she was created to be. She had to lose her job. She wasn't able to be an occupational therapist anymore. She wasn't able to help her folks on the farm like we were losing who mom was created to be.
And then she got the help she needed.
Right. Started going down to Denver.
And my assumption is that she came back?
Yeah she's doing fantastic now. But it was a long journey of healing, especially the upper cervical instability. The top bones of her neck, they've lost some of the structural integrity. All the connective parts or they're not as stable as they once were.
Yeah. I have a similar story. That's why I think that that's really significant is that when healing happens, you actually get your life back. You got your mom back, she got her life back. Your dad got his wife back.
Exactly.
And the healing journey in a complicated case can happen despite the fact that it's a little bit bumpy sometimes.
Right. And it's a health is not linear. There were some dips along the way. And being that the care she was getting was six hours away. I mean, if you get a little bump on the head during during the weekend, I mean, you're talking about trying to plan two weeks out for a six hour trip and thousands of dollars for the travel and the hotel and the food. It was an investment.
Yes.
But we got mom back. And when I started school. I knew internally there was going to be an issue if I didn't pursue Upper Cervical because how could I know that these results were possible and not give it to my patients? There's no way to go back. Once you see the results and experience them personally, like there's an incongruence, you know, if I know that these results are possible, like I can't give “general chiropractic”. Because I know what is accessible with the specificity.
So what you're saying is you have a general level that's all good, all chiropractic is good. And then there's a level above that where you go over and beyond essentially to help more complicated cases that need something more.
Something extra. It's similar to normal doctors out in the field. You know, you have your your general practitioner that is great for the every day. And then you have those doctors that are like, “ah, I want to focus into something extra”. So you have, chiropractors that specialize in pediatrics. And all they do is the squishy baby stuff and infants and moms and they love and breathe pediatric care. That's awesome. We need to have those specialty doctors. We have the upper cervical doctors that specifically study years and years, thousands of hours of studying the top two bones of the neck and how it interacts the entire body. We need those specialties. The other specialties that are within chiropractic. It's not that they're not chiropractors, it's just they have their own specialty. And I knew I had to go into the Upper Cervical world just because I saw it was available.
Yeah, I think that's one thing that a lot of people don't realize. People think chiropractic is one thing and it's one thing only, but it is actually as diverse as the medical field. It's like if you have a heart attack, you don't go see the OB/GYN. And it's a similar thing with Chiropractic.
It's very similar.
So now we've heard what led you into Chiropractic and Upper Cervical and seems like it was life events that have kind of guided you. And we started by you were ready to start your career in Chiropractic, right when the world ended for a few years, in 2019, 2020. So why don't you pick up your story there.
A little bit during school. You know, because I was I was focusing on becoming Upper Cervical. And so I made sure I went to every conference I could learning different upper cervical techniques. So I went to the knee chest organization and learned knee chest. I went to Blair and their conference and love Blair. I have a bunch of Blair buddies. They're a bunch of nerds like I am. You know, it was just the fact that I'm a big guy, you know, I'm 6’3, 320 pounds. I knew if I wanted a long career, being bent over the table probably wasn't the best choice for me as a human. And so to me, I knew that the table based instrument stuff was going to allow me to protect my body for the longevity.
So that's that's actually a good topic to go into a little bit more. We've touched on this a tiny bit in some other episodes, So we've talked about Upper Cervical is a specialty within Chiropractic and within Upper Cervical, there's probably about sevenish different techniques that are all similar. They all focus on the upper neck. They're all no jerking, twisting, or popping. There's always imaging involved. There's way more in common than there's different, I feel.
I agree.
What you're saying is every practitioner has to find the one that makes the most sense to them. And then also, every patient has to find the one that's the best fit for them, whether it's personality wise. Sometimes it just comes down to availability.
Accessibility is usually the biggest, the determinant of what type of care you get.
Yeah. So that's going to be the second half of this interview. And we've already noted your mom had to travel six hours. We routinely have people who do that in our clinic. I would say probably at least half the patients in The Blair Clinic, where we are, travel at least two hours or more and it's half of our patients.
And it shouldn't be that way.
It shouldn't be that way. So I want to finish up your story, and then that's where I want to take the conversation for the second half.
Sounds good. So as I went to these different techniques and learned from these contacts around Chiropractic, you know, knee chest, Blair, I've done the epic technique. I've done all of their training, their boot camp, and I helped bring that club on the campus.
Yeah. So Epic, that's where you said you use sound waves, right?
Right. Epic is one of the techniques that uses a sound wave to adjust the top bone of the spine.
So that's an instrument that gives a little - is it ultrasound?
It's a percussive sound wave. So there's a certain Hertz frequency that is generated to help move the atlas or the top bone of the neck, very similar to Blair. There's a lot of patient positioning on the table to help pre stress the adjustment, if you will, to help put the body in the direction of the bone needs to go. And then the sound wave is kind of that catalyst, just the click it in.
It's almost just a tiny little tap.
It's just a tiny little tap. Yep. And you know, it can be a sound wave. Or then you have Grostic, which uses a very light by hand adjustment. Then you have NUCA. That also is a hand adjustment that's very similar in the same analysis, the minutia between these upper cervical techniques, it's pretty small. It truly comes down to how are you measuring these these bones and then what does the adjustment look like? But the purpose behind them, it's the same.
Alright. So here we are at Sherman College. And you are here on staff.
I am, full time on staff.
So life took a turn from you setting up a clinic to now you're here. So why don't you talk about why you're here, what your position is here? And maybe a little bit of how the
The journey between?
And then also how the academics of being a professor here at Sherman, fits in or compares to being a doctor out in the community.
After graduation, I dedicated my time to go work for the Epic technique, so I actually moved down to Clearwater, Florida, worked with Stan Pierce with the Epic Technique of the epic franchising that they were starting, and I worked for them for the first year and a half of my practice as a Chiropractor. And so I was on the business side working on using those connections that I made through school with all the different technique leaders and influence within the profession and used my skills to help advance Epic. I was down there for a year and a half and my goal back in - I was in school. Within my first few quarters of class, I knew I wanted to come back and be on campus of Sherman to help advance chiropractic, because the only way for chiropractic to maintain is for chiropractors to come back and serve the profession. You know, very similar to your husband. You know, he's here on campus advancing the profession by giving back to the school.
Yeah, hes teaching, the Blair technique.
The Blair Technique here on campus. And so the students here on campus wouldn't have those opportunities if a doctor out in the field didn't want to come back and serve chiropractic. So by third quarter, I knew eventually I was going to come back to Sherman at some capacity. My entire family, my mom's side are all in the academia. So superintendents, teachers, special ed, the whole gamut of education. It was kind of in my blood. It was almost inevitable for me to end up back in academia at some point. And my my boss here, she said, “Hey, Russell, you've been very integrated and different techniques and connections through chiropractic. Would you come back to Sherman and use those connection points to advance Sherman College through fundraising?” It was the opportunity I needed, so I came up here to work at Sherman.
Okay, excellent. So on that note, you're talking about fundraising. Obviously it costs money to do research to run a good school, to recruit students. So what are some calls to action that you have to listeners? Maybe it's someone who, like your mom, has had a fender bender or some kind of incident and they haven't been the same. And then also similar to - maybe young people that are in a situation that you were a few years ago, that are thinking, I want to get into the healing profession and then finally to doctors. So patients, someone who's wanting to go into a healing profession and then established doctors, what do you have to say to each of those?
Fantastic. Well, first, we'll talk to the patients out in the field that are either receiving this care or want to find this care. The biggest thing is just getting plugged in with their local chiropractor where they are. That would probably be the biggest thing because it's about the profession. It's not about Sherman College. It's not about Blair. It's not about Epic. It's not about any of that. It's about getting the patients connected with chiropractors to get the care they need. So that's probably step one is just getting connected and under care.
And maybe asking the questions that they have on their brain?
Right.
And that's one of the things that I always talk about is if you're a patient you know yourself best. And ask really honest questions like don't hold back and just find out. There is a doctor out there that will be a good fit.
And if that chiropractor isn't able to answer your questions or takes offense to them or shoots them down, probably isn't the best fit. So it's tough. Like, I wish you could go to any chiropractor and receive the absolute best care, and it was almost like going to a dentist. Every time you kind of know what to expect. And it's just not where we're at in the profession. So it takes a little bit of legwork and sometimes it takes reaching out to a chiropractor that you you hear on a podcast saying, “hey, you know, I need to get under care. I have no clue where to start.” And, you know, between professional connections that we have, we try to find someone that'll probably be a good fit for the situation.
Yeah, and that's actually a large part of what I spend my day on. So if you call the Blair Clinic, you don't have to be in Lubbock. And even if you are in Lubbock, I may or may not think the Blair Clinic is the best fit for you. But my story is I got help because I got plugged into the right way. And so my passion is getting people plugged into what works for them. So that's a little side note. So in the show notes, contact me, I'll put a Dr. Goff’s contact information and we'll be glad to connect you to what's right for you. So that's on the patient side.
Perfect.
So if you're a young person and you're considering whether the healing profession is right for you, what would you say to that person?
First thing I would say is just go for it. I mean, if you feel like you're called for the healing arts, you're called the world needs you. Like the world is sick and dying and needs people that have the heart to bring health out there in serving. If you feel like I'm not fulfilling my full potential, there's a reason you're feeling that, is because you have the capacity. You have the ability to go out there and serve humanity. And we need people, you know, whether it's becoming a doctor or becoming a CA.
A CA? meaning a Chiropractor Assistant, correct?
Yeah.
We have this lingo that people may or may not speak.
I tried really hard not to use jargon, and it just slips out sometimes But, you know, becoming a Chiropractic Assistant, like maybe you're not able to set aside seven years to become a doctor. Well, how else can you serve your community? Like, how else can you serve humanity? And be able to connect people to the health they need. The second thing is go visit schools. I know a lot of students that, you know, they'll say, “I want to do this.” They find the one school and they go and they don't really truly experience the campus. You'll know whether or not you fit on campus, you fit within the community. It's the right calling, but you have to be there. So if you want to visit Sherman College, reach out to me. I'll get you plugged in with admissions and we'll get you on campus.
You do some pretty fun tours here.
We do some amazing -. Yeah. So about four times a year we have Showcase Sherman, which is our big admissions event, if you will. But it allows students and potential and even their guests to experience what chiropractic is, who Sherman College is, and if this is the right fit for them. The other chiropractic colleges usually have some kind of recruiting event very similar. But as I was a student, I went to three different colleges, and when I visited Sherman, I felt like I was home. And so because I felt like I was home here. It's where I needed to go. And there was actually another college that they gave me opportunity to work on the research clinic. They were giving me scholarships. They I bought their water bottle, I bought their t shirt. When I went there I was swagged up. And then I came to Sherman's campus. I was like, “ah, but I'm home here.” I still use that blanket and I still use that water bottle, but it's not where I went to school.
It seems similar to the advice that you gave to patients is don't give up and find the right fit. And that's what you're saying with if you're wanting to be in the healing profession go for it. That desire is there for a reason and find the best fit for you.
Go for it. Find the best fit and experience it in person. There's just something special about experiencing people in person. There's a connection interpersonally, and this is getting beyond the level of chiropractic, if you will, in the metaphysical. But there's something special about connection in person. That you have to experience and some campuses will resonate with you and you'll feel like this is where I belong and some campuses won't. And that's what you have to figure out is where do you belong?
Good advice. So finally, to chiropractors out there that are humming along, they're doing well, but maybe they want to do more or maybe you would like them to step up. What do you have to say to them?
There's a few different opportunities that I would recommend for chiropractors out in the field. One is send your potential students that you already have in your clinics because each one of you have chiropractors listening. You have those students. You're like, “you know what? This patient would be an amazing chiropractor.” You know, there's that calling on their life. Get them plugged in with a school, you know, get the reach out to me. Hannah Tucker on campus is our liaison between doctors out in the field and our admissions team. It's called ROAR, which is Reach Out and Recruit, which we have a lion as our mascot. So it's kind of a fun.
Yeah, I'll link all that in our in the show notes and on our website.
Yeah. We'll link her link for ROAR and signing up, you know, giving you the resources to connect potential students with Sherman College. So I mean, even if they're in high school, we want to start that relationship like, “hey, this is what Sherman College is. These are the requirements for your state because each state requires something different to be licensed.” So if you want to work in Florida, you have to have a bachelor's degree before you can practice chiropractic. If you want to work in Kentucky, you just need the equivalent of associate's degree to practice there. So every state is very unique and very different based on the state. And just knowing those things ahead of time will allow you to plan your journey through chiropractic school.
Yes. And actually, on a side note there, back when my husband went to chiropractic college, the chiropractor that recruited him very much wanted him to go to Sherman. But at the time, it wasn't possible to get a license in California if you went to Sherman, which you can now.
You can now. That was part of our journey as an institution. We, since the very beginning, we were founded by Thom Gelardi, who was a Palmer student who graduated in the late 60s early 70s. And he knew he needed to create a school to promote chiropractic and to save Upper Cervical. He could see that the profession was getting away from the upper cervical work. Thom Gelardi named Sherman College after Lyle Sherman, who was actually the co-director of the research clinic at Palmer College, and he did a bunch of research in the Upper Cervical work. And Thom knew that we need to perpetuate and to continue the Upper Cervical work. So Sherman was actually based and founded on protecting chiropractic and protecting Upper Cervical. And when you look at our our curriculum on campus, it's still very much reflects that. We have 3 Upper Cervical adjusting courses that are part of our core curriculum and Upper Cervical rationale class. So it's like, Hey, how does Blair do their analysis? How does Grostic and the orthogonal groups, how do they do their analysis? Where are their overlaps? Where are their differences? That every student that graduates from Sherman has at least had to learn those nuances, whether or not they practice Upper Cervical, they at least know the information.
Yeah. And and I think that's really key that you want a doctor that's well rounded and educated in a lot of things and to also maybe know some things that's not in their specialty so that you can trust your doctor to refer you to a specialist. If it turns out to be complicated.
Yep. And it's good to have multiple tools in your tool bag. Even even though your husband practices Blair pretty exclusively in the Blair Clinic.
Yes. He refers to a lot of other things, because he is he is very, very, very good at doing the Blair technique. But he doesn't do, say, soft tissue work or rehabilitation work.
But your husband is aware of those things because of the exposure.
Exactly. Yeah. He knows when to refer out. And I feel like that's something that personally I think is lacking a little bit the other way that I think - That would be my call to action that I would like to see as a primarily a patient and a patient advocate is that doctors would be more open to collaborating and talk together and more freely refer patients back and forth to each other. And in each other's specialty, which is one of the reasons I appreciate Sherman College and how you focus on the different specialties and allow your students to be exposed to really good- .
It's the best things in chiropractic.
So we've talked quite a while and I've asked you a bunch of questions, but, you know, there's probably something that you have on your heart that I don't know about. So what is it that I haven't asked you that you wish that you could just shout from the rooftops and by shout to the rooftops, I mean, say it on the podcast.
Yeah, well, I think the biggest thing is the call to action for the doctors. Everyone gets plugged in their own silos. They go through their every day, through their clinic to provide for their family, which is awesome. But what can you do to help the profession? What can you do to help serve chiropractic itself? As a chiropractor, you've been given a great sacred trust. There's a responsibility of perpetuating the profession, and that comes in two ways. One: Fill the schools. We have to have students in the schools to perpetuate chiropractic. The other thing is you have to fill the right schools. You know, not every school is going to create a chiropractor that is going to serve the profession well. You know, obviously, I think Sherman's the best because I work here. You know, there's 4 or 5 other schools around the world that I would definitely send people to, you know, and there aren't bad schools. A lot of them just lost the heart. They've lost the purpose behind chiropractic. And so they're adjusting the people out of pain. Chiropractic isn't about getting people out of pain. Chiropractic is about connecting the body with the brain. To have the nervous system restored to the way it was created to be.
So you get your person back like you were talking about with your mom.
Right. And my mom was definitely in pain. I mean, she was in debilitating migraines. She couldn't be around people, light made her sick, like mom was definitely in crisis mode pain wise. But her problem wasn't she was in pain. You know, the pain was the signal saying, “hey, something is wrong.” And so many of the chiropractors that are trained in other institutions, they're well, you adjust so the pain stops and it's like, well, at that point you're just Advil, you know, they're training their chiropractors be like, Well, you're no better than Tylenol because you want your patients to come here and get out of the pain. Great. But have you truly fixed the thing that was causing the body to give you the signal to begin with? Otherwise you can rub ultrasound, you can do laser shows, you can do a whole lot of other things that get people out of pain. But if you're not fixing the problem, you're not doing chiropractic. You have to truly serve the body to allow the body to heal itself the way it was designed. B.J. Palmer said, “the body needs no help. It just needs no interference.” So removing those misalignments from the spine, removing those misalignments from the nervous system allow the body to heal the way it was designed to. So the call to action of the doctor is get your students plugged in the right schools. Two: Support the schools. I don't know if you if if doctors are aware, but, you know, these students are leaving with chiropractic loans alone with $180,000 to $200,000 of debt.
It's a lot of pressure.
Yes. And that's let alone undergrad. So I have colleagues out in the field that are sitting at $300,000 of debt and they don't even know how to adjust because they went to a different school. And it's like, that's not fair. Great, they're plugged into the communities now that they need to be in to develop those skills. But supporting those institutions that truly allow the profession to thrive, that's really needed. So that can be happening in the referrals to our students and to cash donations like truly financial contributions to the college. Because, at least at Sherman College, those donations help offset the cost of the students. So if you know, as a development coordinator, you know, if I brought in, let's say, $1 million to the school, that million dollars, if it was unrestricted, would alleviate the pressure from the students tuition. That directly influences how much money is required from the student's tuition, You know, so if we were able to raise, let's say, $5 Million for each one of the chiropractic schools in the US. That's $5 Million that isn't in student debt for chiropractors out in the field. And so that the institutions that you trust and know and you're involved with. That's your alma mater, or it's another institution that you trust to teach chiropractic the way you know is true. That actually will help alleviate the pressure of the students with those student loans.
Giving forward time, talent, and treasure.
And that's exactly right. It's a time, talent and treasure. And if you aren't able to financially contribute, contribute yet to the to a school because you're new in practice or something, then give your time you know, get plugged in with a club, getting plugged in with a technique that can serve a campus or give give your your talents on campus. Gordon's here, offering his talent to the college right now, teaching Upper Cervical to these students that they wouldn't have that access to otherwise.
So what it boils down to is we've talked about patient students that are considering becoming doctors and doctors themsevles. And so I think what it all boils down to is keep moving forward to help more people with more issues, more of the time. And the more we all work together, maybe the fewer people have to travel six hours or more or some people have even longer distances. So the more we work together, the more we can help more people more of the time.
That's exactly right. And it takes a lot of people to do that. That isn't a small mission, you know, but it takes individuals saying, “Ah, I can do this.”
So yeah, so get plugged in because when we work together, like you said, it's a huge task and it's easy to get kind of swallowed up and say, “well, what can little me do?” But when we work together, we can do more.
That's exactly right.
Is there anything else that we haven't covered that you really can't wait to say?
I don't think so. I think we covered everything. Everything, of course, I mean we definitely could have gone down some rabbit holes. But yes, we truly represent the direction chiropractic needs to go. Some call to actions for doctors and students and patients out there, and there are patients that say, “oh my gosh, this care changed my life. I want to support a scholarship or I want to support a student.” And I would love to make those connections for the patient out in the out in the field as well. If you're a patient and you want to help support a student's on campus, reach out to me. I would love to get you connected to different opportunities we have on campus. Some of them are for emergency funds. Let's say a student's battery dies in their car and they weren't expecting that. There's a special fund that we have for emergencies like that. We do student scholarships that are for perpetuate scholarships. Like let's say, “Hey, I love Blair, I love the Blair work. I want to support a Blair student at Sherman College.” You know, we create something like that where the scholarship selection committee knows that, “hey, this needs to be a student that's taking is part of the Blair Club or has taken the Blair elective.” So there's a lot of options and opportunities. All I need to do is just reach out to me and get them connected to the resource and the opportunity that they would like.
Yeah, good point. It's actually one of my pet peeves. You don't have to be a doctor to help someone. And that's the reason why I got over myself and say, “well, what can I do with this podcast? You know, I don't have the degree, right? But I have the stories, I've seen what I've seen and I have the experience.” And so I'm sharing those stories.
And in so many ways, those stories are actually as important, if not more important, just to tell the story of chiropractic.
Yeah. So if you have a story, I'm going to go out on a limb here. Contact me and maybe we can tell your story. And if you have some talent or treasure that you want to impart into the chiropractic profession, contact Dr. Goff.
Yes, please.
So I think that's probably the best place to end it. And Dr. Goff, I thank you so much for your time today.
Thank you so much for having me and to be on campus. And I hope you enjoy your time in South Carolina.