What it Takes!

This is a question that all of us who are a part of The Specific have been asked. As much as someone might think this is an offensive question, I don’t find it to be.

People simply just don’t know the steps in order to be a Chiropractor.

I want to introduce myself and share with you what it actually takes to not only be a Chiropractor but one that is a part of The Specific Chiropractic Centers. My name is Dr. Mike Merkt and I own our office in Lake Country, Wisconsin, which is located around 30 minutes west of Milwaukee.

High school is when I decided I wanted to be a Chiropractor. From there I needed to figure out the steps needed to become one. The first thing to get out of the way was to get a bachelor degree with the proper science classes needs to get into an accredited Chiropractic College.

Once accepted into school was when the real work began.

Now getting through undergrad isn’t the easiest thing in the world but there is still some free time outside of school. Once in Chiropractic school I quickly realized this was not even close to undergrad. Instead of normal semesters, we had trimesters meaning school was year-round for about 4 more years.

Everyone in school is greeted early on with general anatomy, including cadaver work! This is something that was pretty disgusting early on but once I got used to it I was interested in how everything actually looked and worked. The schedule is comprised of many other classes making the trimesters 20+ credits overall. Something that was great is classes were put in place since day one to start working on the Chiropractic end of things.

The first class that I experienced at Northwestern Health Sciences University that focused on what we still do in our offices was a class called spine and pelvis, along with radiology, and palpation class. This helped us learn the spine and all the bones from an anatomical, feeling, and x-ray component.

Once you make it through a lot of the science classes and other adjusting classes you finally get to be in a clinic environment. We had 2 clinics at the school and another 2 in the community. We started off in the student clinic where other students and family members of students and school employees could get care for free. It started off as once a week getting our feet wet. I will never forget how nervous I was meeting my first “actual patient.” It ended up being a friend of a friend so I actually knew the person making the experience a lot less hectic compared to other’s experiences.

After this first round of clinicals is when it starts to ramp up. You do more and more hours in the clinic making sure you meet all of the requisites to graduate on time. In the meantime, if you wanted to be a part of The Specific you have to go to other seminars.

The Specific Technique

The technique we do in The Specific Chiropractic Centers was not taught at my school and isn’t purely taught at any schools. This meant on top of what I was learning I had to do more learning and studying outside of school.

I had to make sure I took 2 The Art of The Specific Upper Cervical Intensive Seminars to even be considered to be a part of The Specific Chiropractic Centers. From there I went on an outreach trip to El Salvador which ended up being a test to see how well I can actually handle stress and taking care of sick people.

I realize that this is just my story but this is what every doctor that is a part of The Specific Chiropractic Centers has had to go to. If you were ever curious as to what it takes to be a Specific doc now you know! Each every one of us is required to go to 2 team trainings every year, another seminar that focuses on our Chiropractic technique a lot of other engagements that help grow our profession.

Realize that when your doc is going out of town on what seems like “vacation” for work, it is far from that!