The 4 Biggest Problems Women In Chiropractic Face – Part 2
This post is the second in a series all about the biggest problems women in chiropractic face and what we can do about them (hopefully proactively).
After 11 years of consulting with other chiropractors on their lives and practices, and almost 4 years specifically coaching female chiropractors, I’ve identified the 4 biggest problems women in chiropractic face.
If you’d like to proactively do your best to avoid these problems (which you can)…
Or, you’re dying to make life and practice as a working mama easier, what you’ll read here will help you.
In this series of 4 posts, you’ll learn what these 4 big problems are and what you can do about them.
But just as we talked about in Part 1 of this series, we have to make sure we’re clear on how I’m defining “big problems” here.
I mean, when I think of big problems, I think of medical kidnapping, the broken healthcare industry, corruption in government and politics, poverty, homicide….
You know, real light and fluffy topics, right?
Those are truly BIG problems.
But for our purposes, I’m not talking about those kinds of really big problems.
Other big problems like:
Your baby was born at 30 weeks and is in the NICU…
Your mom has a rapidly-progressing neurological disorder and can no longer live independently….
You have cancer…
Yeah, these are really big problems.
But again, we’re not going to be focusing on these types of life challenges.
Those problems can affect anyone, not just a woman who’s a chiropractor.
And we’re going to focus here on the unique problems that you and I face in life and in practice.
Clear? Good!
Let’s pick up where we left off.
Problem #2: We’re alone.
There’s tens of thousands of us, and yet… we feel isolated.
Helping you understand why isolation is such a big problem for women in our profession is probably easiest if I share a story with you.
Meet Stephanie.
When Stephanie was a chiropractic intern in her last trimester of chiropractic school, she applied for a residency position that was open at her school.
She was still undecided at that time if she wanted to open her own practice or do something else.
She knew she didn’t really want to work as an associate–having a boss just wasn’t for her.
But opening a practice just after the economy crashed in 2008 seemed so scary and so risky…
Add to this the fact that she wasn’t feeling uber confident in her adjusting skills yet, and she decided to apply for the residency and just see what happened.
Well, Stephanie got the job.
So just one week after graduating with her Doctor of Chiropractic degree, Stephanie was teaching right along side the teachers who had just taught her.
Even though she felt major imposter syndrome in this role, Stephanie loved her job.
Soon she was leading a team of 30+ sports chiropractic interns and getting to work in the sports medicine departments of some of the areas top universities.
She was traveling with elite sports teams all over the world.
From her mentor to her faculty colleagues to her interns to her patients, she was always surrounded by like-minded people.
Long story short, Stephanie decided to leave her job at the chiro school and start her own practice after she had her first baby so that she was no longer working nights and weekends away from her little nursing.
Stephanie was so excited to finally be pursuing her dream of owning her own business. She felt scared about making this leap, yet there was so much excitement too!
After years of helping her interns prep their logos and branding and create marketing plans as they neared graduation, she felt confident she knew how to get new patients into her practice.
But, Stephanie wasn’t prepared was how alone she would feel.
She did exactly as her mentors in chiropractic had told her to do to grow a successful practice—she worked hard.
She went from being constantly surrounded by like-minded colleagues to sitting in her office totally alone.
When a patient wasn’t responded to care as quickly as she had expected, there was no one to ask for clinical advice.
When she wasn’t sure if the cost of a new ad in the local paper would pay off, there was no one there to back up her decision.
When she was tired and brain foggy but had stacks of paperwork that needed to be done, there was no one there holding her accountable to getting the important things done.
The days quickly started to feel like every day she was running a marathon…
and there were no support crews…
and no water stations.
The finish line was nowhere insight.
She just kept running, each day wondering how much longer she’d be able to keep it all going on her own.
Stephanie was way under-resourced and under-supported, and she didn’t even know it.
She thought that this was just normal for the first few years of practice ownership, so she just kept pushing on.
Doing it all on her own.
Until… she just couldn’t anymore.
And within a matter of weeks, Stephanie walked away from what had been her dream practice, after handing the keys over to a new grad that she hoped she could trust with her patients.
If you haven’t realized it by now, “Stephanie” was me.
Stephanie’s story was my story.
But maybe… her story is your story, too.
Maybe you’ve known that same sense of being on your own island in your practice.
Maybe you’ve spent many days thinking, “Can someone throw me a lifeline please???”
If you HAVE, then let me ask you….
How does this sense of being alone and having the weight of #everything fall on you affect you?
How does it affect your marriage?
“I expect more help with my practice from my partner than what he’s really able give me.”
How does this affect your parenting?
“I go home completely wiped out from the work day and just let me kids watch tv all evening while I get lost in the scroll hole looking for an escape from it all.”
And how does this affect your self confidence?
“I’m not sure how long much longer I’ll keep everything going smoothly before I’m just too burned out… and I’m worried.”
If “Stephanie’s” story sounds like your own story, you need to know…
A community of support in practice is valuable.
And a community of support that empowers you to grow a profitable practice without sacrificing your health and happiness is invaluable.
If you feel alone and isolated in your chiropractic career and are ready to connect with like-minded women in chiropractic, come join us in Aligned Women’s free online community Mama Chiropractors – where you can learn more about growing a profitable practice without sacrificing your health or your family.
Also, you’ll learn about the next big problem that women in chiropractic face in Part 3 of this series! So be sure to join me next week for Part 3!