[originally published in KCN, June 2015]
“Sublata Causa Tollitur Effectus” occupies my office whiteboard. While some mistake it for a Harry Potter magic spell, it’s just a Latin phrase I found in a book that — while not “magical” — has the potential, if understood correctly, to be truly transformational: “The effect will leave when the cause is removed.”
Simple. Succinct. And, in my opinion, brilliant. (more…)
[originally published in KCN, February 2015]
One of the most exciting aspects of health and the human body is change. Your body, and therefore your health, is constantly changing. Either it’s getting a little bit stronger, or a little bit weaker. There is no Switzerland. There is no neutral. (more…)
[originally published in KCN, March 2014]
Scribbled on my office white board with mathematical symbols was the equation: Chiropractic does not equal health. My patients were stunned. Surely this was a heretical chiropractic proclamation!
“How can you say that Dr. Lamar? Isn’t that the whole point of chiropractic?” went their puzzled queries.
“Nope,” was my response every time. (more…)
[originally published in KCN, February 2014]
Safety pins. They’ve been around for more than 150 years and have seemingly endless uses, not the least of which is the reason we chiropractors like to use them.
Sounds odd, I agree. To be more accurate, most chiropractors of today don’t use them at all, which is a shame.
No, it’s not an old school style of adjusting — unless adjusting “between the ears” counts. Rather from as far back as 1927, chiropractors of yesteryear have used safety pins as a way of explaining what they did. (more…)
[originally published in KCN, January 2014]
“Deliver your message to Garcia” is hardly what you’d expect to read on a bathroom wall, but it is precisely what was scribed above the faculty toilet at the Palmer School of Chiropractic a century ago. BJ Palmer, our profession’s developer, was known for making the walls of his learning institution “speak” — even if the wall happened to be in the bathroom. No square inch was safe from his sign-like display of painted epigrams. The school was covered with thousands of these short, pithy, thought-provoking sayings. They were designed to not only spark interest, but reflection, and over time, action.
While many were self-explanatory, like “Keep Smiling,” some were not. “Deliver your message to Garcia” may be nonsensical to us today, but it had great meaning and cultural popularity in the first part of the twentieth century. (more…)
[originally published in KCN, November 2013]
“What separates a good chiropractor from a great —or magical — chiropractor?”
That was the question I was confronted with when a novelist from Italy reached out to me for technical assistance with her latest book. I’ve been asked a lot of questions about chiropractic since I first stepped foot in the profession twenty-one years ago, but never this one. (more…)
[originally published in KCN, June 2013]
That’s what Dr. David Jackson communicated to an assembly of chiropractors — of which I was one — in Seattle several months back. He went on to say that fear keeps us from telling others what we know we need to tell them because we’re more afraid of what they might say versus what they might not say. When it comes to sharing chiropractic, he’s more fearful of not telling people than he is at telling them. He admitted, though, it hadn’t always been that way for him. But as he began to witness more and more people falling ill and dying, he became too afraid of the results of staying silent.
To illustrate his point, he told us about an encounter he had on the airplane as he was flying up to our meeting. He explained that he had settled in his chair and was very occupied multitasking between his iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Pro. Nevertheless, he could sense his seatmate periodically peering into his “mobile office” space. With Dr. Jackson’s company name, Epic Practice, emblazoned across his screen, it was obvious he was a chiropractor. And glancing over at her work space, he immediately surmised she worked for a drug company. (more…)
[originally published in KCN, January 2013]
As we find ourselves in the thick of cold and flu season our focus on avoiding germs becomes top priority for many of us. We’re quick to Purell our hands and sanitize everything we touch. But are germs really the issue? The reality is, they’re no more of an issue now than they are at any other time of year. (more…)
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