I use to think that we chiropractors should be teachers, that we should communicate the chiropractic message to people and then watch it change their thinking and their lives. In fact, I have often said to audiences that educating practice members is almost as important as the adjustment.
Recently, I started to make a more concerted effort to get into better physical shape and it was suggested that I should get a trainer. Perhaps it’s my ego but my first reaction was “why do I need a trainer!” I’ve been playing sports since I was six years old, organized sports since ten, including wrestling which is one of, if not the most physically demanding sports. I did it through high school and college. I really didn’t think I needed a trainer! Okay maybe someone could tell me how to use the equipment, watch me do it once and correct any poor form, or give me a program to follow but I didn’t need more than that. Who am I kidding? I’ve started and stopped exercise programs a dozen times over the years. I need somebody to motivate me and keep me at it. Very few people have perfect form after the first try and many never develop some bad habits somewhere along the way. A trainer could watch them do it over and over until they get the correct form without any mistakes.
I’ve come to the conclusion that we need to be trainers of our practice members rather than teachers and I am not advocating mixing. I mean we need to train their thinking with regard to the necessity of regular chiropractic care. We cannot tell them once and expect them to get the big idea. We have to give them the same information continuously and in many different ways. I am told a good trainer will constantly alter your program as your needs change, as your body changes. You muscles need to be challenged in different ways. We need to be repetitive in our chiropractic education without boring people to tears. We have a single objective, to get them to understand chiropractic but we need to present it in different ways. You would not give the same brochure out to the same person every time they came in the office, and yet the same brochures are in the racks. How about the same posters on the walls and the same literature in the office year after year? Sure there are certain basics people need to understand but there is so much more than just the basics, information that will advance the practice member’s thinking and get them to better understand the need for lifetime care.
A good trainer is continually on top of you to do the right things, hold you accountable for your actions or as the case may be your inactions. Do we fail to remind people, or chide them for their failure to get in the office regularly? Sure it’s tiring and a downer to have to tell people every few months that they need to get in more regularly and why. But if you hired a trainer and he or she did not do that, did not “kick your butt” about being lazy or inconsistent, well, you would feel that they weren’t doing what you paid them for. Perhaps we need to look at our care the same way. People need to be told regularly about regular care and our job is to tell them over and over. If we don’t, we are failing them. If they don’t like it perhaps they will stop coming altogether and that may be the best thing. Your type of care may not be what they really want. The bottom line is that teaching is imparting information to people. Training, on the other hand, is not only imparting information but doing it over and over until it becomes a part of their life and their actions and monitoring the changes that it makes in their life. The monitoring that we do is to see if people are beginning to think from an ADIO perspective particularly in the area of life, health and well-being. The first indication that they are is that they understand that health is not feeling good and going to someone only when you do not feel good. The best indication of that understanding is that they are having their spine checked regularly. So lets begin to be more of a trainer, to be more involved with our practice members in our area of expertise, chiropractic and all its ramifications to one’s life.