Education Patient Tressa Brown (right) says Dr. Lisa Thompson has inspired her to make healthier lifestyle changes. Brown had also no idea the chiropractic referral would be a catalyst that would send her down the path of better health and wellness. More than a year had passed since she last received chiropractic care, she is pain-free, exercising regu-larly and have lost 40 lbs. “Dr. Thompson had been my inspiration,” Brown says. “She suggested healthy eating and she also talked about ex-ercise…. Now I’ve dropped 40 lbs. and I’m healthy and active. “(Dr. Thompson’s) efficiency in how she dealt with this acute pain I was in has been what made me ready to make the next change in my life.” Butler’s patient, Rita Paget, was experiencing significant neck pain when he recommended chiropractic care, and referred her to Core. It was Paget’s first time seeing a chi-ropractor. She says after three or four chiropractic sessions with Core and some acupuncture treatments, her condition has im-proved and her neck pain was resolved. Paget commends the “team effort” of the doctors involved in her care. “It’s nice to know that it’s a team effort as opposed to you making those decisions on your own, trying different tech-niques and different strategies on your own. At least you know that all your health team is consulting with one another and they are working holistically for you,” she says. www.canadianchiropractor.ca In addition to referring patients Al-Dhaher has also invited the chiropractors to conduct information sessions with the staff and learners (medical students) at the Central Lamb-ton Family Health clinic, which also serves as a training site for medical students from Western University. These education sessions provided further opportunity for Thompson and Core to educate other health care work-ers and future doctors about chiropractic. In one occasion, they came in with their chiropractic table allowing them to demonstrate their process for assessment and adjustment techniques. Al-Dhaher says that goes a long way for the clinic staff and medical residents. “Not only are they educated to see what (the chiroprac-tors) provide, but they can also bring that back to their patients and say, ‘I’ve seen the chiropractor do this on my colleague, and this is what you should expect.’ Everybody benefits from that sort of exposure,” explains Al-Dhaher, whose work in training and mentoring medical students at the Central Lambton clinic recognized by the Ontario Col-lege of Family Physicians. Last year, Al-Dhaher was the recipient of the college’s Award of Excellence. Both Al-Dhaher and Butler believe interprofessional collaboration works well when it starts at the education level. It’s part of the reason why Al-Dhaher invites speakers from other health professions in the community to come and talk to the residents. Al-Dhaher says he is a big proponent of interprofessional education. “There’s been a paradigm shift in medical education,” says Al-Dhaher. “Our most recent young learners, medical students and residents are being now exposed to allied health and some of the things and the scope that they bring to the table.” Patient education, self-care and promoting wellness out-side of clinical care are other areas where the chiropractors are scoring some health care points, according to Butler. The 10-week Learn to Run course that both Thompson and Core conduct in partnership with the family health team, has been a great example of community programs that promote better health and disease prevention. Butler recently participated in that running program. “When you have people building a healthy community beyond just seeing the person in the office, that is something that I respect,” Butler says. “I’ve spent a big chunk of my career trying to enhance the infrastructure of health in our community beyond just my own clinic, and then I see some-one like Dr. Thompson running groups to get people out and around town. It’s a dynamic change of attitude about health.” As a relatively new chiropractor, Core feels “very fortu-nate” to be learning from and working with Thompson and experiencing first-hand at such early stage in her career what many believe is the future of health care: interprofessional collaboration. “I’ve been really lucky to have that opportunity, and I realize not every new grad does. It takes a lot of time to build that trust that (Thompson) spent over 10 years doing al-ready. It made my job a little easier,” Core says. February 2017 Canadian Chiropractor 21
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