Good Morning Dr. Hollander!

I'm getting ready to apply for chiropractic college. Do you have any opinions on choosing a school?

I'm interested in Life University. Do you think Life has too much philosophy? I generally come from a pro-science background - I am finishing up my Masters in Neuroscience & Behavior here at UMass Amherst. Is Life going to be too much philosophy for me coming from my background - or maybe it will be good to contrast what I already have?

Andre Boulay

Good Morning Andre!

Let me just say that choosing a chiropractic college is like choosing someone to marry. They look great before the wedding, theres a honeymoon, and then six weeks later you realize that they fart in bed. You then see all their flaws and imperfections. But, if its the right marriage, you love em anyways. I went to Parker, and I know all their flaws and imperfections. It's a great school, it ain't perfect. No school is. Most ppl hate the school that they go to. Hell, a lot of ppl at chiro school hate chiropractic! It is easy to become bitter. So there are a lot of great reasons to go and not to go to Parker. But the same could be said of any other college. Because they all fart in bed after six weeks!

The important thing to keep in mind about philosophy is that it is not mutually exclusive with science. Quite the contrary, the two should go hand in hand, being mutually synergistic. The philosophy of chiropractic is profound, and science supports it. A firm foundation in chiropractic philosophy will only help your success as a clinician and a healer.

Chiropractic philosophy is involved in patient care. We always choose the most conservative, least invasive intervention to help people. When we consider how we will help our patient, we only utilize interventions which are physiologically compatible. The adjustment promotes physiology. An aspirin manipulates physiology to make the patient feel better, but not necessarily making that patient healthier.

The other thing that you do have to look out for in our profession, sadly, is Dogma. You'll commonly find chiropractors blindly following certain ideas that often have no basis in reality. Some of them even mix the profession with their religion. Others try to scare their patients and sensationalize their problems in order to control them. This is unfortunate because patients of these "dogmatic" doctors will likely have a negative opinion of chiropractic as a whole.

I would highly highly highly encourage you to read this article "Philosophy and Science versus Dogmatism in the practice of Chiropractic." Dr. David Seaman masterfully illustrates this problem. The article was required reading for my club at the beginning of every semester and we had excellent discussions about it.

Life is known for its strong philosophy, and that's a good thing. If you combine a strong philosophy with a strong science background you can become a force to be reckoned with as a physician.

Hope that helps!

Mad Chiro Luv,

-Darren, DC