EPISODE 351: Strategies When Patients Don't Get Better......and More

Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry.

Dr. Kevin Christie: [00:00:00] Docs, welcome to another episode of Modern Chiropractic Mastery. Today, I am bringing on Dr. Mark King for maybe the fourth time, and we're going to dive into three. topics. We kind of had a few things just aggregating as far as topics that are being brought up by, uh, chiropractors that are either in our mastermind or that we coach or just people that reach out to me or even our preceptors.

And, uh, the three topics we're going to discuss specifically in this episode are one, system one and system two thinking from the book, Daniel Kahneman wrote, uh, thinking fast and slow. And it really just talks about, you know, system one is easy thinking system two is, is real critical thinking and how, where you may be at in that.

And we have a lot of great insights on it and something that you can kind of hang your hat on that, uh, it will get better. The second topic is, is what do you do and how do you communicate and how do you manage effectively that patient that's not getting better? Right. And a lot of us struggle with that.

A lot of us get [00:01:00] frustrated with that. A lot of us, um, don't know what to do in that scenario. So Dr. King helps us with that. And then third, what happens when you make the patient worse? You really aggravate something, not just a little sore from a treatment, but the treatment that you delivered, um, really set them off in a sense.

And that's what's going to happen. And, and Dr. King talks about that. This is like, no matter, you could practice, for 40 years and have a ton of experience and it still may happen. All right. So what do you do in those? Uh, scenarios. And so he was kind enough to kind of volunteer to, to provide some wisdom and insight into this so that we can help you become a better clinician, because being a better clinician, isn't just the treatment that you render, but it's also the communication and leadership you provide to your patients.

So here is my interview with Dr. Mark King.

 All

Dr. Kevin Christie: right. Excited to have Dr. Mark King on the podcast again. Uh, one of our resident frequent [00:02:00] flyers here at the modern chiropractic mastery, uh, show. And I'm specifically bringing him on to talk about, uh, three topics today, and we'll be diving into those shortly, but how everything's on your end.

Dr. Mark King: Doing great.

Happy to be

Dr. Kevin Christie: here. Yeah. Good. And it's, uh, uh, always good to, to get you on here and get some wisdom. Uh, and I think that's what we need today. And what I want to do is start out with the, there's a book called thinking slow and fast or thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman. And we had talked about this concept when we were together in our Orlando mastermind and essentially System one thinking is like, if I asked you two plus two, your brain would just automatically think and come up with four, you know, you're not burning many calories.

It's easy on you. System two thinking is, is where, you know, it's, it's a complicated thing. I, you know, what's 11 times 24, you could probably. Figured out, but you're gonna have to burn some calories thinking through that. And, uh, you [00:03:00] know, in clinical, uh, decision making in our, in our, in our clinical day to day, there's going to be a go between, you know, sometimes you're in system one and sometimes you're in system two.

And one of the things that I've found, and I want to get your, your thoughts on it, um, Is that a lot of the younger DCs, I don't know if it's the first five years, two years, seven years, I'm sure every DC is different. They're burning through a lot of system two thinking and it's wearing them out and they're not able to see the light at the end of the tunnel that I've been doing it for 18 years.

You know, you've been doing it for a few more years than me. Um, it's, it's not like you're in system two thinking all the time. And so what are, what are just some of your thoughts around that? We can kind of converse

Dr. Mark King: around that. Well, immediately when it comes to mind is you, you want to build a practice.

So you see a lot of patients, if you're seeing one patient every hour and seeing six patients a day, there's going to be a lot of things you just never see. So you're going to be system through thinking on every patient every time. So getting some reps in with, with a [00:04:00] lot of patients. So build a big practices is helpful.

And, uh, the reps do allow you to start to be able to say, well, I've seen this before. I know how this, Typically goes. So you want to, uh, a lot of it is just getting used to doing, uh, or seeing these things. And if you're not sure, go back and read something. Uh, like you saw Mr. Jones and you, it's the first time you ever saw whatever, uh, lateral epicondylosis.

And you, you really never have had that patient before. So you go back and you get one of your books out and you kind of read what they say about it. What are some things that we, uh, what are some things that I can do to this the next time. So It becomes a little more automatic. And then again, I know I always preach about systems.

What are the main tools that you are going to use? Now, I obviously am biased toward MPI. So I'm, one of my main tools is, does that patient need to be adjusted? Uh, I've done my good exam. I've done my good history. So I feel like I have a good diagnosis. And then what tools am I going to use for that particular diagnosis?

You say, well, I, for lateral [00:05:00] epicondylopathy, I, I'd like to adjust these things. And I. Routinely, let's say you're an ART guy or you're a Graston guy. I'm going to do that. Maybe you say, well, I'm going to tie that in with scapular stability. So I know what my rehab Uh, protocol is going to be for that patient and you kind of go down your list, but the, the idea with this is that if, if you have to reinvent the wheel each time, it is like you say it, it just burns up your brain and by the halfway through the day, you're, you're just worn out.

So have some easy access, uh, books, uh, you know, we made a condensed case management book that we booklet that we use for with bullet points, but like, uh, Tom Mishot's book for any of the lower extremity stuff is, is great. You get up, you get up. plantar fasciitis. You've never had a plantar fasciitis patient before.

What does he say about it? You go in and read, he's got a clinical chapter, and he's got a section on plantar fasciitis, and you go through, it takes you five minutes or less to read, and you say, oh, okay, now I'll make sure I'm doing that better, uh, when that patient comes back. But a [00:06:00] lot of it is you've got to put the time in.

Uh, learning how, how to manage those cases and then get the reps and then it becomes easier and easier and less stressful. And I really want to make a point here that if you don't figure out a way to make more of your patients, as you say, system one patients, then it is extremely fatiguing. Extremely fatigued.

You need to have some ones that you go in there and it's pretty automatic. Mr. Jones comes in each month, he likes to get adjusted. I adjust him, ask him how he's doing otherwise, and boom, I'm on to the next room. Much less draining than, wow, I, you know, I've got to figure out whether this guy's dying from some horrible, horrible disease, if he has a disc, if he has what.

So you've got to figure out a way that you have some automatic protocols in place in your brain for when you go in with that patient. That's that's great.

Dr. Kevin Christie: That's like the one thing I just overarching. I want our audience that maybe is struggling into this right now is to realize it does get better. So that's one thing to hang your hat on.

Like, it's not always going [00:07:00] to be like this. Um, the second thing and kind of to your point, and I really like Cal Cal Newport's work, uh, on what he calls a deep life. And one of the things, one of the buckets in the deep life is, is working on your craft. And you have to enjoy the craft and getting better at that craft and realize it's, um, it's just a process.

And fortunately enough, typically when you're early on in practice, you've got more time on your hands. You tend to not have 50 patients in a day. And so you might have that 10 minutes to go and look up plantar fasciitis and, you know, and build out some of your best, uh, practices for that. And so that's just a, a way of really, uh, working on your, your craft.

And I want to ask a kind of a segue question to it. And, and I had Brett Winchester on the show a couple of years ago, talking about it as far as clinical efficiency. And one of the things that I think you and I are seeing is a lot of these. Younger docs are coming out with, [00:08:00] you know, 13 different certifications and types of treatment styles and, um, they get bogged down because they're just got so many things.

They haven't really perfected 1 or even 2. It's like they're trying to perfect 10 at the same time, and it becomes a. Becomes really just like they're in the weeds with with that. Um, is that something you're seeing? What are your thoughts on that?

Dr. Mark King: Right. Um, that I see that a lot and we always emphasize and people have listened to me before.

I've heard me say this. I, I stole this from, uh, Mike Leahy was interviewed by, I think it might've been, uh, Brett Winchester, but anyway, he asked him, you know, what's the one thing you would tell. young docs and Dr Lahey, although he's biased toward ART, just like I'm biased toward adjusting and motion palpation.

His bias was, he's just said, become really good at something. Now again, we all have our bias, but the point to your point is become really good at something. Of course, we would say become incredibly good at your manual care. and then build on it from there. The, the Cal Newport thing, I just finished a book that [00:09:00] was written back in 2012 about Be So Good They Can't Ignore You, which I just found like such a powerful book.

And, um, you know, you do have to look up things, uh, sometimes with a patient when you haven't, uh, uh, it's a case you haven't seen. I always tell young docs, There's three things you should be working on in your practice. You should be in a room with a patient is number one, or number two, you should be marketing, figure out your marketing on how to build your practice, or number three, you should be working on your systems.

Now you're looking up, uh, for example, we were talking about plantar fasciitis or lateral epicondylopathy. Those things you could, those are a little bit of systems. What's my system for how I treat it? Marketing, if I'm good at it, more people will come in. And patient care, I can help Mr. Jones who's coming in tomorrow with, with a lateral epicondylopathy that I need to help him with.

So it really covers all three when you do that. But those are the three things a new doc should be focusing on. The patient care, marketing, or systems to make the office extremely efficient. So that when you do get [00:10:00] more patients, you're able to handle them in a time efficient manner. Because our Let's face it, in healthcare today, if you're a chiropractor, your margins are tight, so you need to be efficient, and, uh, if you're not, you're just, um, you just don't make any money in the end, quite frankly.

But your point is, are you going to be a jack of all trades and master of none, or are you going to be a master of one and two and three? And I think, uh, very strongly that you should become a master of one, and I think Dr. Leahy was spot on with his point with that.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, it makes sense. And, and, you know, and you gotta have the longterm, you know, if you're 28 years old, uh, you know, it's going to take some time to be really good at what you do and your craft and you continue to work on that.

And so maybe, you know, by the time you're 35, if you're lucky, like you're, you're really. Good. You know, and it, and you've got that and, and it took a little bit of time to add some things and you, you know, tweak this and you built some systems and, uh, that's gonna really help you slowly get away from so much system two thinking.

So yeah,

Dr. Mark King: you, you're, you'll be amazed even pick whatever [00:11:00] your skillset is if you Yeah. Whichever thing you wanna, uh, focus on. If we say adjusting. five years into practice, you'll be amazed at how much better you are at your palpation and adjusting than you were when you got out of school. And maybe you thought you were good coming out of school and now you're much better and you'll just continue to get better at that.

And then that's why I say, then you start adding these other things and become a master of more than just one thing then.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Perfect. So we'll, we'll, we'll move on from that, but I think to encapsulate it is that it, it does get better. Um, there's strategies to make it. Better quicker and to be, you know, more effective.

And so, uh, just think, think on that a little bit. And if you're listening to that and you're falling into too much of that system to, uh, you want to try to get a lot more system one so that when that system two does come, you, you got the calories for it, right? Exactly. Yes.

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Dr. Kevin Christie: All right. So moving on to our next one.

And this was something that's popped up a few times in, in my, um, our coaching programs of just, um, you know, how to deal with that. I shouldn't say deal with, but how to manage that patient. That's not getting better. You know, like you feel confident in what you prescribe them. As far as a treatment plan, you're, you're doing all the right things.

They're doing the right things. They're just not getting better and they come in and it's, you know, let's just call it. Week three or four, and you have to have that conversation with them where it's like, it's not not going the way you were planning on, and obviously they were hoping, uh, what are some of the things you do to effectively communicate and provide leadership for that patient where it's still, you feel like they, they are happy with the fact that you at least communicated around, that you address the elephant in the room.

Uh, what are some of the things that you do in practice?

Dr. Mark King: So, that's a, that's a, that's an important one because you're going to run into this, sorry, I [00:14:00] don't care how great a clinician you are, you're going to run into this, you know, people that pretend like they don't have these patients, uh, they're just lying.

Yes. Because we all have them. And, but the thing I would say is you, you set the tone on day one, that's huge. Now, some of you have blown that with patients and didn't set the tone on day one. What do I mean by that? I do a very brief report of findings and one of the things I say to them, for example, uh, Mr.

Jones, we're treating this, uh, lumbar disc syndrome. We need to see at least a 50 percent improvement in the next three weeks. And if we don't, then we need to get an x ray and an MRI and maybe even a, uh, surgical consult. We need to see at least some progress in that time. And we especially don't want it to be getting worse progressively over the next three weeks.

And I always make a big point. When I first start to work on you, Mr. Jones, you are going to get worse, uh, very often. Now, sometimes you'll just stay the same, but don't be surprised if you wake up tomorrow and I made you more sore. That's okay. That's part of the process. So I'm setting the tone from day one.

But because I do a care plan, they know that it's the end of whatever it is, three weeks, [00:15:00] four weeks, whatever it might be. They need to be whatever, 50%, 75%, 90%, whatever I think it should be at that point. And if they don't, they have not improved, that we're going to take an x ray. We're going to get an MRI.

We're going to get an outside consultation. So you save yourself a lot of heartache if you, uh, set that on day one. And then the thing I say to them, let's say they're not doing better at the end of three weeks, and I thought they should have been, and they're 5 percent better, they're 15 percent better.

That's not, that's not enough to matter. I say, Mr. Jones, you've done what I've told you to do. You've been in here for your appointments. You've done the exercises I gave you and so on, and you're not any better. Uh, and the thing I say to that is, does that make sense? And it does not make sense to me. And I know it does not make sense to you.

We're missing something. It's time to get some other testing or get an outside consultation. So. If you said it at the beginning, then, okay, we did a clinical trial, we, we didn't improve, we need more information and you just be very straightforward and very much to the point and very honest about it. [00:16:00] And they appreciate that.

They know they're not getting better. They know that you're doing your best to help them. And if you say now is the time you are not doing better, let's get that MRI of your whatever your low back and see if there's anything else going on there. But a three week trial is very reasonable for virtually anything.

And like, and for a lot of conditions, they need less than that. And a lot of, a lot more conditions, they need more time than that, but that's a good measure to say, Hey, maybe that first week you're going to be feeling worse, but by week three, you should be telling me you're significantly better. And if not, then we need to get more information.

And so we set it on the front end.

Dr. Kevin Christie: That's a big mistake I've made. Um, historically. Yeah. Two things. One is obviously the conversation on visit one and it don't meant sometimes I forget to mention they could be sore or get worse. Uh, or the other thing I've done in the past is where, you know, I, I kind of didn't want to face the elephant in the room where it's now week four and they haven't improved like I want and we kind of just keep going.

And then they finally hit a wall at like. [00:17:00] And they bring it up and I was just kind of dancing around it too much instead of just hitting it head on and say, okay, we need to talk about this. Like you just mentioned. Uh, and so it takes, sometimes I think it takes a little bit of courage because we all want to, we all feel bad that they didn't get better to a certain extent.

I think when you start doing it long enough, you get a little bit less. Emotionally attached to it, but you always doing your best and you want them to get better and it's, it's frustrating when they don't, but the, the sooner you have the conversation, like you said, on visit one, and then the sooner you have that conversation towards that three, four week or whatever, you know, that you said, uh, the better everybody's going to be for it.

Dr. Mark King: And, um, that goes. back to my simple report of findings short and sweet and to the point. And, uh, you, you, you start doing that from day one. And I tell every new patient or every update that I haven't seen a long time or somebody that I haven't adjusted a while, I'd say, you know, Mr. Jones, you'll, you're going to be sore tomorrow.

And I make kind of a light of it, but I want them to know. And I repeat myself, you know, I say it two or three times. So I [00:18:00] just want you to be heads up. That's going to be because of what I'm doing today. And, uh, I just want you to be aware of it. And it, you know, most of the time they're not sore the next day, but a good chunk, they are when they are sore, they're like, okay, he told me that was coming when they're not, they're like, okay, well, I'm, you know, I'm cool.

I didn't, I didn't get sore and they just go on. So it really, it's the preemptive strike, so to speak.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Perfect. And, and, and, um, yeah, that way it's not awkward when you, you get there. And obviously they're not, uh, they're not doing better for whatever reason. So cool. Is there anything I didn't ask about that particular aspect or any other insights on it?

But I think that that really covers quite a bit.

Dr. Mark King: Yeah, I think that covers it. Cool.

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Dr. Kevin Christie: All right. So moving on to the third one, this is the one where, you know, we don't necessarily like it. And, and it's, I want to make sure I frame it correctly. It's not that they're sore, but let's say, you know, your treatment actually made them worse, uh, where they had a really a bad flare up and it's almost not soreness.

It's pain they didn't have before, uh, or [00:20:00] some kind of symptom. I'll, you know, they just, It happens, right? We don't want it to happen, but it does happen. I had it happen to me a few weeks ago, you know, and, um, and I did say the patient would be sore, but he was like, look, this isn't soreness. This is worse. I have a headache.

I never had a headache before. And so I addressed it. I did a fairly good job. He came back. He was fine. Um, but what was, what would you say for the, the chiropractor that, um, Has to go into that room. The patient's kind of upset. You made them worse. Quote unquote. Uh, what, what do you do in that situation?

Well,

Dr. Mark King: a lot of that is, uh, you know, grabbing control of the room, uh, and saying, okay, Mr. Jones, uh, let's reevaluate this and see what's going on, why this thing might be worse. Uh, that, and what I say to them is that doesn't make sense that it would be worse. Uh, Well, I'm not only if it doesn't make sense. I mean and typically they would not get worse from the treatment So that you know doesn't make sense that you wouldn't get uh would get worse on it We need to reevaluate this and see what's going on and right there.

I may uh, I may do an exam [00:21:00] I may take an x ray. I may refer them out right there. I mean like hey, that doesn't make sense to me I must be missing something. Let's dig in further. So you put it back on to hey, we need more information I don't blame them. I don't blame what I did because I don't really know yet But why, what's going on?

I did this with a patient once I adjusted his hip and um, I knew he had femoral acetabular impingement. Uh, so I was careful, but he still says that I, I made it worse. And so I said, well, that doesn't make sense because we treat it typically are helpful with the pain and, and dysfunction that goes with those, uh, with impingement.

Obviously it's structural, so we don't get rid of the impingement per se, but we typically make it more manageable. And, uh, so let's get an MRI. Well, he had more going on on the MRI than I, and I thought he had a, uh, uh, uh, labral tear and zillofemoral joint. Um, he had some degenerative, more degeneration than showed up on the x ray.

So, I was a little surprised that he had as much going on with his hip as was going on. So, uh, He [00:22:00] felt better that I was thorough and went and got more testing and tried to figure out what was going on. But that line of, well, um, that doesn't make sense. Let's figure out what I'm, what we're missing and go in it from there.

And always make it a team approach. Well, tell me a little bit more about what's going on and let's, okay, let's stop and let's do an exam and literally do an exam and literally. In our office, we have an x ray unit. I can go down the hall if I need to and get an x ray. I can send them out for an MRI and so on.

So that, that's how I handle that. And, um, quite frankly, as you go along and practice, you, that happens less and less the older you get. It still happens. Don't get me wrong. Uh, this guy I'm talking about with the hip was six months ago. So it still happens, but I'm just saying it happens less now than it did when I first started.

And it's, it's distressing because you want to help the patient.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yep. And I think, you know, over the years you do it enough, it happens enough where you kind of learn, it's like, I got to, you know, back off on this hip a little bit. I, I went into it too much before I've learned that lesson. Uh, let's [00:23:00] ease into it a little bit.

Right. So perfect. And, you know, one of the things I want to make mention of a book on this, cause I ultimately, I think, you know, chiropractors, um, you know, they, They live this, you know, they, they go to work, but they come home and they dwell on, you know, whether it's, they're burning out because their system to thinking too much, or, uh, they didn't get, uh, you know, three patients better that day that they'd saw 25 and 22 of them were happy as, you know, pigs and shit, but three of them were upset.

We're not upset. They just weren't getting better. And you're, you're focusing on those three or you did get that one patient. That flared up on your treatment. You take it home with you. And, and I, and I know the struggle we all do. We've all, we've all been there and we, we want to do the best for our patients.

And, uh, you know, it takes time to get there. And there's a book. I really like, uh, you're familiar with the author, uh, Dr. Benjamin Hardy. He's read some other books, but he wrote one [00:24:00] by himself and it's called be your future self now, uh, which I really liked and it's got a lot of good insights in general on, um, you know, becoming the person you envision yourself becoming right?

And if you're a 28 year old, 30 year old, 32 year old chiropractor or. 25 year old, um, you know, you're not going to be your best version of your, of your chiropractic self at 33. Right. Um, what would you say, I'm putting you on the spot here, but what age range did you feel like you were like, I'm in my sweet spot.

Like I, I can go into that room and have a conversation with that patient that's not getting better. Or I feel like I'm in system one a lot. Like if you had to put a guest, the person does the right stuff. They work on their craft there, you know, their, their care, their patient center. Like, what do you think the age?

Range where you feel like we're really humming along here.

Dr. Mark King: I will, this is gonna be very depressing for a lot of people, but , I've never thought about this question before. I, I would, if you had to pin me down, I, [00:25:00] the number I would throw back at you is 45. And, uh, that's depressing for a lot of people. And I was working extremely hard and doing my best and felt like I did a lot of good work.

Um. I just, it just kept, you know, I just kept studying and kept learning more and I kept feeling like I, my skill set was getting better. It, uh, to where I really felt that confidence routinely. Now I felt a certain amount of confidence because I knew I had some good skills right from day one, but I just, again, I hadn't seen so many things.

I mean, I remember like it was yesterday, cause she's still a patient. When I started years ago, she had a, uh, carpal tunnel syndrome. And this was my first year in practice. And I. You know, honestly, I just kind of missed it. Uh, what was going on with it? And, you know, I've kind of never missed another one since, but I, you know, that you're going to be like, wow, you're not much of a diagnostician.

I'm just being honest. I, you know, I was early on in practice. I thought it was a cervical radiculopathy. She had a carpal tunnel and I just, uh, she just wasn't getting better and ultimately got an [00:26:00] EMG and went to physical therapy and actually they helped her more than I did. So it was, uh, humbling. And it's like, well, that won't be missing that thing again.

And I just, you know, I screwed up, but I know it's depressing to think about for the average 30 year old chiropractor out there that Mark King's out there saying he's 45. But it's not that I wasn't doing good work before then. It's just that I, if you're asking me when I really felt like I hit my sweet spot in a lot of different ways, that would be my guess.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, that's exactly what I want to get to is like, it doesn't mean at 37, you weren't doing great work, right? You just, it all came together in a sense where now you're doing great work. You feel confident in it. You get energy from going to the practice. You're not burning out necessarily. Your systems in your practice are built out.

Like your marketing is good, right? Uh, all that stuff. And so I, I wanted to ask that question because yeah. You know, the, we all need to have some delayed gratification. We all need to realize that we put the work in our craft. Now, we may not be, you know, you know, joining [00:27:00] the country club at 35 and we may not, we may see some of our hedge fund friends at 35 doing that, but we got to play the long game.

And you're going to, if you do all the right things, you're going to really enjoy this clinically, but you're also going to reap the fruit of your labor as well. Right,

Dr. Mark King: right. And it's, um, you have to decide on that, you know, how much do you like the clinical versus other parts, you know, I, we, you and I have talked about that a little bit.

One's not better than the other. Just that, um, you might get your juice. Um, the book you, uh, I think I just got this from you. The, uh, six geniuses book by, uh, Lencioni, I found the book a little painful to read at the beginning because he's, uh, his fable was a little silly the way anyway, but the message is so good and it always plays to, you know, play to your strengths.

The big thing of the, that book, the big, big, big thing is what do you really like? What do you get your juice from? Do that. And if you say, well, I, I just hate seeing [00:28:00] patients. Um, I'd rather do, uh, you know, I'd rather run the practice. Well, then you got to figure out a way to get to that point. If you only like to see patients, you don't like any of that, then you've got to get help.

So you can focus on that. One's not better than the other, uh, but you've got to get that set up. That's, I always talk about the E Myth Revisited, an old book. It talks about that, getting your systems in place so you're more efficient, and it takes some of that stress out of there. But, uh, Lencioni talks about the idea, and other books have been, similar books have been written, but this idea of what are your, what's your genius part of your, uh, skill set, and, and focus on that and get help in the other areas.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Uh, it's it was very helpful for me for sure.

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Dr. Kevin Christie: And then, um, lastly, you know, I kind of speaking on, you know, working on your craft MPI every year has a handful of kind of special, uh, seminars, workshops, uh, you know, conferences, and one of those is coming up in the first quarter of 2024. And I think, you know, people need to really start preparing for 2024, Build out your marketing plan, build out your, you know, financial plan, but also what is your clinical plan going to be to take it up a notch?

And, and I always enjoy the, the MPI sports summit that you have. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Where that little bit of a new venue this year, I believe,

Dr. Mark King: what are some? Yeah, we're going to do this in Minneapolis. It's actually going to be on the Northwestern campus and we'll have, uh, Four instructors, Dr.

Ohm, Dr. Hulme, Dr. Campbell, Dr. Winchester, I'll be there just to, to help, uh, be happy to be [00:30:00] a, be one of, one of the assistants around, um, but we're, this time we're doing, I think we're doing the shoulder and, uh, from, you know, kind of a Spore Summit, uh, uh, concept with, uh, movement screens, rehab, uh, soft tissue, uh, uh, manual care, you know, palpate and adjust.

So we've kind of covered the spectrum of what you're going to see with some of these, uh, shoulder cases in a sports injury setting. Because if you have a sports injury practice, It's obviously going to be helpful. But a lot of the majority of you listening are going to have more of what I call family practice where you see lots of different stuff, sports being one of the big things.

So it will enable you to know what to do with more of these cases and how to handle them. If you get good dealing with shoulders, my goodness, people have trouble with their shoulders and you can really be a big help to them. You know, you don't have to be Uh, the, the, the chiropractor for a professional baseball team, uh, you don't have to have to go that far, but you are going to see lots of, uh, people, either athletes with shoulder problems or just humans of any [00:31:00] kind or shape or size that have shoulder problems.

And it really, uh, it really expands your practice and gives you a lot more stuff that you can, that you can

treat.

Dr. Kevin Christie: It's so, it's so true. You're like, if you were to take the neck and back out of it and, and you just, uh, most conditions, you, you couldn't build a practice around. Like you'd have a hard time building a practice around plantar fasciitis or, you know, foot pain.

Like, uh, yeah, I'm sure Tommy showed has done that, but, uh, it'd be hard to do that, but you could probably build a practice just around the shoulder, the amount of injuries that people have with that, uh, I'm not saying go to do that, but it's just so prevalent and when you get good at it. Um, it just adds such a layer to your, to your practice.

And to your point on systems is like what I enjoy about the sports summit, how you guys have it designed. Cause I actually went to the shoulder one, I think it was 2019 yet shoulder, whatever year it was. Yeah. And then last year I was there and last year was spine, I believe. Right. Um, but what I noticed, let's just go back to the shoulder one back in 19.

Was if you go there and you're like, [00:32:00] you actually will leave there with a system to evaluate and treat the shoulder. And, and to your point, and that'll make you a lot more clinically efficient.

Dr. Mark King: A lot with the shoulder, there's a lot of things going on. So you need to be able to quickly and efficiently evaluate that.

Right. And if you can, then you know what treatment's going to, going to work best. And, uh, a shoulder is an example of where if the only thing you do is adjust, you're going to, you're going to have some limited success. You're going to need some other things. And, uh, and. Some of these other tools are, uh, cover, cover the shoulder more comprehensively, I'm trying to say.

And so, the idea of this is We're going to, we get to, uh, gather a lot of really smart people into one room, so to speak, and, and share these ideas. And, um, you know, you learn stuff, you know, talking in the hallway to somebody that you meet there. Cause it, like I say, there tends to be a very sharp crowd that come to these, uh, sports summits classes.

They know it's, uh, more

Dr. Kevin Christie: advanced. Absolutely. It's [00:33:00] great. You can check more out at motionpalpation. org. Uh, highly recommend it. Giving you plenty of notice. That's, uh, I think it's in late March. Late March, yeah. Yep, late March, so check that out. Minneapolis, uh, cool. What are you excited most about 2024? And I'll let you get back to practice.

Dr. Mark King: Well, for me, I'm always, uh, my big thing is always learning more. I always, uh, I just really like studying. I like taking classes. I, I like learning more all the time. We're, we're always bringing classes. For my own office, for our doctors into, into Cincinnati, I have Jason Hulme coming in April to come and talk to us about just clinical pearls, what is he, he can kind of talk about anything he wants, we just know he's a smart guy who's very dedicated and we, we, we can learn from him and I'll, you know, we'll, we have different guys come in and teach us stuff on a wide range of topics, but for me, a lot of it is, uh, yeah.

I, I just continue to like to learn. And then, um, we have a lot of good stuff going on with MPI. And I, I really think, um, you know, we had that period with [00:34:00] COVID where I think a lot of people didn't get to develop their manual skills as much. So, so I kind of feel like MPI is more important now than even ever in the past.

So that part is very exciting. We're going to do our GATE class again in 2024 with Dr. Michaud and Dr. Conley. Um, And Dr. Winchester. So we got that and we are just a thought. So there's plenty going on. Lots of exciting stuff going on. So, uh, it keeps me juiced up. Keeps me excited about going to work each day.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Perfect. Well, I appreciate your time today and your, and your wisdom on some of these topics that were kind of being brought up consistently, uh, in at least my circles. And I wanted someone to come on that, uh, has been practicing for a couple of years to, to answer those. So thank you.

Dr. Mark King: Yes. Always, always love talking with you, Kevin.

Uh, hope you have a great holiday. You

Dr. Kevin Christie: too.