First, Make Rice
Fledgling sushi chefs spend months (sometimes years) doing nothing but making the rice for the head chef.
If the rice isn’t right, it really doesn’t matter what else you do, you’re not going to be able to create and serve great sushi.
The clinical education provided in Chiropractic curricula invariably has to assume that their students already know how to “make the rice”.
They have to assume that you understand the art of asking questions and listening, that you have experience with building rapport, that you have an innate empathy for what your patients want and think, that you know how to make a compelling case that chiropractic can help them, that you know how to enroll them in the concept of a corrective care plan (think orthodontia), that you know the difference between presentation and conversation, and when they say yes, you know exactly what to do to get them started.
Too often we may feel the pressure to jump into the next cool marketing strategy, and perhaps that’s because we failed to develop or use our natural inter-personal skills to create relationships with patients, and to educate them about the need for ongoing care to correct their problems.
Our Chiropractic Assistant (CA) Page and our New DCs Page both contain materials pertaining to personal and practice growth that may assist you on your journey to become a more empathetic and successful doctor. I hope you find them of value!
Thanks to Dan Henderson for drawing my attention to Seth Godin’s original commentary, which I have now adapted into a clinical pearl for the day.
Fantastic post. I love the line, “too often we may feel the pressure to jump into the next cool marketing strategy, and … fail to develop or use our natural skills to create relationships with patients.”
As a chiropractor, you are your most powerful marketing tool. This is very true and it is imperative to avoid getting lost in all of the new, albeit useful, technology.
This is from Seth Godin originally, right? Well applied to chiropractic!
I’m guilty of this. The next thing is so much
“easier” and exciting than, well, making rice.