written by Dr. Kevin Pallis

A honed Code of Honor is like a sword…not a maul

 

 

Your Code of Honor only gets stronger when it’s demonstrated. Like a sword, it must be constantly sharpened or it becomes dull. We’ve mentioned this many times as a concept in The New Renaissance (TNR.) When your sword is not sharp, you feel like you must use it like a maul. Everything you do requires so much effort and your results are small. But it’s a sword, not a maul. Slicing through resistance, smallness, limited thinking and quitting is the function of your sword. When it’s dull, life starts to lose meaning. Some DCs think that you can just talk a good game, but at TNR events, warriors can see right through you. As the elder, Shep, at Fort Peck once said, “the Red Path is a difficult path and is one of heart.”

 

What is your real duty towards practice members?

 

When this question was posed to me by my mentor, Dr. Joe Flesia, I had to come clean with some embarrassing dirty little secrets. I still had allopathic traces in my office and I was on friendship terms with practice members, rather than being a leader. I truly wanted to help practice members, but I had a weak belief in and love of Chiropractic and a limited view of its power. Missing was the respect and awe of Innate Intelligence. It just wasn’t sacred to me. How could adult low back pain and neck pain be sacred?

 

Just doing some of the TNR procedures was a real challenge to me. Especially the Health Awareness Seminar. I felt like a slick salesman. And those videos–my patients didn’t like them. They were dated, so I agreed with them and didn’t do them with
“important” people. When faced with a difficult case, I relied more on outside-in modalities, nutrition, and exercise rather than allowing Innate to do its job. (Author’s note: this is not judgmental or critical toward any of our readers who utilize nutrition, physical therapy, rehab, etc. The point being made is to have complete belief and congruency in what you do believe in…no plan Bs). I had to develop this belief through many years of experiential events like H2Hs, voracious reading, clinical practice, taking on the skeptics, and mentoring other DCs.

 

What is your real duty to practice members that seek your service? Is it to do what they tell you to do? I.e.: “just fix my back, Doc.” Is it to just do your best to fit in with the socially accepted network of DCs? Is it to treat them according to insurance guidelines? TNR would humbly suggest that your Code of Honor is to do what’s best for each and every practice member. What is your duty toward a person who has an illness that is considered by the majority to be outside the purview of Chiropractic? Do you look the other way, perhaps reminding them of their limited major medical benefits or do you roll up your sleeves and demonstrate what you know to be true?

 

It is not the intent of TNR to convince you to practice a certain way or to prove subluxation-based Chiropractic. It’s simply a vehicle for those who want to learn how to become a once in a lifetime DC. If you want to help all ages–sick or well–and actually change the health paradigm, you’ve found a home. TNR is the community of support necessary to become a DC of distinction. You will fall many times entering the unknown, but members will pick you up time and time again. Outside the world of TNR, most DCs see competition and don’t want to cooperate with area DCs. But in TNR it’s just the opposite. Members are always there for each other, especially the “newbies” or brothers and sisters facing a challenge.

 

What’s your Code of Honor with your love of Chiropractic? I came clean with mine, now it’s your turn. What is your true intent every time you do a report of findings? Making this months overhead, making a payment on your brand new E-class Mercedes or is it that one human and their family actually gets a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience life different than the rest of planet? That’s deep!

 

How about your code of honor when it comes to kids? The majority of our profession offers kids care as an “off menu,” a la carte item. Will you step up and take the heat…or will you speak on a need to know basis only? It all depends on your Code of Honor. How about raising your kids? What medical procedures, if any, are you going to allow? Nobody will ever know of your decisions. That’s the thing about your Code of Honor, only you know. It’s sometimes easier to go with the flow when it comes to your own children. Once you start with small compromises, it begins to unravel. Your spouse usually has a decidedly different take on health. You will be reminded of the price you pay to have this Code of Honor every time you make a health decision for your kids and it doesn’t work out the way you planned. You have to answer to spouses, in-laws, and your parents. You might call these little compromises “dirty little secrets” that nobody knows about. We have all made such decisions. The solution is to start cleaning them up and take a bolder stand for your Code of Honor.

 

Vaccinations pose a constant challenge to the TNR warrior. School regulations, state regulations, sports teams, etc., the heat is always on to uphold this time-honored belief. Here’s a true story from mentoring in year one. A parent called me, agitated, confused and emotional. Their child around two years old (we’ll call him Archie) had suddenly started having severe seizures, lost the ability to talk and was unresponsive to communication. (Author’s note: Now we all know that for a child to exhibit these neurological behavior and personality changes, it takes many conditions to cause this. Often times we look at the last procedure and call it a cause. However, we should think of it as the straw that broke the camels back.)

 

When asked about medical procedures, I was told there had been none. I answered that there had been something that compromised his nerve system and pointed to an unlikely scenario. He almost hung up on me. I suggested that his son may have had heavy metal poisoning (highly unlikely) or that he may have received immunizations. I told him kids don’t go from chatty, active, two year olds to zombies for no reason. He said his wife laughed at his suggestion and said he hasn’t been to the pediatrician.

 

I suggested he call the pediatrician and tell him that his wife had lost her glasses and that they were thinking of all the places she had been in order to locate them.

 

“Have you seen my wife’s glasses?”

 

His response, “I haven’t seen her glasses, but I’ll look for them. She was in here last week to get Archie’s shots.”

 

He called me late at night in a state of outrage and disbelief. After settling him down, he said he was done with his wife for lying to him and sneaking behind his back. I let him in on another perspective of a young mother, hopelessly indoctrinated with the medical paradigm protecting her child. She was big into medical and only “tolerant” of Chiropractic. She was just trying to protect her son. They have since grown together and their child is doing as well. This situation actually brought them together.

 

How about your Code of Honor when it comes to Love Has No Color? Is it “one and done” or a way of life? Are you committed to helping these kids in unfortunate conditions or do you leave it to the bigger offices and reassure yourself when you get bigger, then you’ll participate too? When you hear about the “reservation hesitation” do you use it to justify lack of participation or does it create a swell of determination in you that you’ll help the kids, no matter what. It all depends on what type of person you are.

 

When we were going through the process of honing our Code of Honor, it seemed like Dr. Joe was brutally hard on us. He always seemed to ask more from us. He kept talking about the big vision and all the easier shortcuts that would lead an individual away from “Big Vision” Chiropractic. Even though it was difficult and challenging going through it, looking back we understand the urgency of Dr. Joe to make sure we would have the TNR Code of Honor to deliver to future DCs. You can trust it will take Chiropractic to where it needs to go.