EPISODE SUMMARY
Guest: Dr. Jeffrey N. Scholten
In private practice in Calgary, Canada since 2001, Dr. Scholten is a Fellow and board-certified Diplomate in Chiropractic Craniocervical Junction Procedures and holds a post-baccalaureate Graduate Certificate in Pain Management.
Dr. Scholten is licensed to practice chiropractic in the Province of Alberta, Canada. The Clinic Director and Owner of the Vital Posture Clinic, Dr. Scholten also is an Adjunct Professor at Life Chiropractic College West in Hayward, California, and teaches Diagnosis and Management of Spinal Disorders to senior chiropractic students.
There's a hierarchy of neurology in the body and you can understand that by understanding really catastrophic situations. If you were to injure your big toe catastrophically, it wouldn't be very good for you, but worse would be catastrophically injuring to the same level, your lower back. The center of your life force is the upper neck. There's a continuum of severity there.
Dr. Scholten wanted to be a Firefighter but decided to become an Upper Cervical Chiropractor after he witnessed how it helped his sister with Cerebral palsy.
A real reason why he donates so much of my time back to the profession is because the people who came before did stuff that developed the profession to help his family
Dr. Scholten says:”.10 years ago, I didn't know things that I know now that the people that I didn't help ten years ago maybe I can help today. When you have a passion for this, and you get to see patients, and you get to interact with them, and you get to see how their lives are changed by doing what we're doing with them, it's very inspiring to me to continue to try to do that better tomorrow.”
There is a situation in the neck. Either it is injured, or it is not injured. When somebody is suffering from a health condition, then it's a good thing to look and make sure if you think you've injured your neck, or even if you don't think, why not just check and make sure that your neck is healthy and okay?
Dr. Scholten is part of a group of Doctors working tirelessly to expand Upper Cervical Chiropractic worldwide.
If you are sick or suffering, please recognize that there is a possibility that somebody in the world can help and so don't give up hope. Try to figure it out and know that we're working to try to make sure that there are more people who can help in the world.
The diplomates and the board-certified diplomates have done just a certain different thing, and there's a level of complexity of a case that we are trying to help manage even for our colleagues that are interested in doing their techniques well which are part of the affiliate organizations:
Find a top rated DCCJP Diplomate of Chiropractic Craaniocervical Junction Procedures
Find a Doctor who identifies as Upper Cervical
You can find Dr. Scholten here:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vitalposture
https://www.facebook.com/jeff.scholten
To contact Ruth:
ruth@blairclinic.com
https://www.facebook.com/rutelin
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome, welcome, welcome to What Pain in the Neck Podcast. I am Ruth Elder, your host, and I have an incredible guest here today that I feel so honored to share with you. He is a leader in every sense of the word within the chiropractic profession. We're recording this in Dallas at the ICA Upper Cervical Convention, and I want to welcome Dr. Jeff Scholten.
Thank you, Ruth. It's great to be here with you.
Yes, so Dr. Scholten, he has a resume a mile long. He's been a chiropractor in Calgary since 2001. He has started so many organizations and I'm going to post a link in the show notes to his bio, but he's done a lot of volunteer work. He's been the past President of the ICA Upper Cervical Council. You've been the upper cervical chiropractor of the year, and you have been really instrumental in starting the Diplomate of Chiropractic.
That's just to name a few, and we're going to unravel some of all of that today. Dr. Scholten, why don't you start by just talking a little bit about your background and what led you to chiropractic, and why upper cervical?
Well, thanks Ruth. Yes, I'm really happy to be here with you and I try to contribute back to the profession because I get to see these wonderful things happen with patients every day. Most of my patients right now, I don't know before I start taking care of them, but the first patients that I experienced with upper cervical were family members and the differences that it made in their lives were really inspiring to me to be able to see.
That was before you were a chiropractor, so that's what got you into it. You went into chiropractic knowing you wanted to do upper cervical?
I found out about upper cervical before I decided or before I had any interest in becoming a chiropractor.
Yesterday I listened to a lecture that you gave at this conference and you said some things that I think everybody can understand. If I am disputing with you that some other part of my body is more important than the neck, why would you say I might be off on that? You said something about the jaw, you said the lower back. If I say, well, the jaw is more important or the lower back is important too, what would you say?
Well, I think what you're referring to is a lecture I gave in 2013 in New Orleans to a group of dentists. The dentists had me cornered the night before in a bar, and there was about 10 of them, and they were telling me that the TMJ, the temporomandibular joint or the jaw joint is more important than the CCJ or the upper cervical spine, or the upper neck.
The CCJ or the upper neck, that's where the head and neck come together, right?
That's right, yes. Then they gave me an hour and a half on stage the next day and I said, this controversy, we have to figure out really what's most important, what the most important area is and so I said, if any of you have a gun and are willing to participate, then we need a subject or two and one of them we'll shoot in the TMJ and one of them we'll shoot in the CCJ and we'll check for signs of life.
It's a little tongue in cheek, Ruth. It's a little violent, but the idea is that there's a hierarchy of neurology in the body and that you can understand that by understanding really catastrophic situations. If you were to catastrophically injure your big toe, it wouldn't be very good for you, but worse would be catastrophically injuring to the same level, your lower back because then you'd be a paraplegic and you couldn't use your legs or your big toe.
Then as you go up the spine and you get into the lower neck, then you can't use your arms or your legs and so we understand then that if you injure at the base of your skull, that portion of your spine, then you're instantly dead. The center of your life force really if you've had an injury to the upper neck and so things aren't normal, but you're not dead, you're still alive. Then there's a continuum of severity there.
What we say is we have to move you back along that continuum towards normal because once it's been injured, you can't go back to normal, but if we can get you back towards normal, maybe the effects of that injury can be lessened. Just what you had said earlier, how did I find out about chiropractic, well--
Yes, great. I was going to circle back to that and you did so, yes. Excellent.
That's what it was. I was planning to be a firefighter. I was doing kinesiology and in my second year, I had a situation where I took a disability class and I had a lab in the evening and I needed a subject. I grew up, my youngest sister had a lot of health problems. She had open heart surgery at two and a stroke at five and she couldn't use her left arm or leg properly. She was what's called hemiparetic. She had a lesion in her brain and an injury in her brain that caused her hand and leg on that side to not function properly-
Wow.
-and so she would be defined as a type of cerebral palsy. That was young in her life. At that time, she was probably around age 16 and she had a scoliosis surgery because of that difference in muscle tone in her back, or she was needing to have a scoliosis surgery. She hadn't had it yet because she had a very large curvature in her back that had developed from that difference in muscle tone from side to side.
Friends of my family, my parents told them about upper cervical, told them about a doctor who's the past President of NUCCA who was practicing about a 10-hour drive or a one-hour flight away, and so my parents took my sister to that doctor because they were always trying to find solutions that would help her be able to adapt in her environment better. He adjusted her.
That adjustment came just after I had assessed her and so I had all her biometrics. I knew how short her leg was, I'd seen her flexibility, I'd done these basic tests that we would do in kinesiology, and she went and had this adjustment. Then she came back and everything was different. Her leg length was even her hips were level. Her scoliosis, again, it was a different condition that was causing that neuromuscular scoliosis and we understood why.
She eventually needed to have surgery, but through her life, when she was misaligned, her leg would go short and her body would be very crooked. I was able to take care of her at times after I graduated and when she lived or was in the city where I am because she didn't live where I lived in Calgary.
Why don't you actually-- I don't know, did we say where you live? You live in Calgary, right?
Yes. In Calgary, Canada. That's right.
Yes. That's how people can find you and I'll put a link.
Thank you. Yes, so she did just beautifully with it. That was my first introduction to upper cervical chiropractic. Then as happens, she started, she saw that, so my mom started, so then other people started and we just kept seeing different things change positively, and so I was inspired then to become a chiropractor. I thought, this is something that I could really make a difference maybe in the world doing this more than being a firefighter.
Yes. Obviously, we need firefighters, but it's that hierarchy, how many people can become firefighters versus how many people can have a fire to become a specialized upper cervical doctor?
That's it. It's about following where your passion is and so that kindled a little bit of fire for that passion for me and--
A little bit.
[laughter]
It was the kindling at the time as I started to understand it. Then going to chiropractic college and seeing all these wonderful procedures that chiropractors do that help people, I always would compare it back to the upper cervical work. Again, all of us in practice have to limit our scope of practice in some way somewhere and so we choose what we do and what we don't do for our patients.
For me, I thought when I started, well, if I just limit my scope and focus on the upper neck exclusively, then after 10 or 20 or more years, I'll probably be better dealing with that area than if I diversify my approach. I do that in combination with other things. I've exclusively focused on the upper neck for my entire practice time.
You said something about that in your lecture yesterday about always learning, always taking the next step, and you said, "Is this about us, or is this about me as a doctor, or is it about the patient?"
That's what it is, Ruth. That's exactly it.
Those were your words, and then someone else in the lecture this morning is says, "Becoming a specialist is knowing more and more about less and less."
Yes, that's what it is.
I think actually that would be a great way to go into talking about how somebody can find a true specialist because I think you see in your practice, and we see in our practice, and also that's really the listener that I'm hoping to reach with this program, that there are so many people that feel like they have tried everything and they're suffering, and they've just been to a doctor, after doctor, after doctor, and they've tried chiropractic and they've tried physical therapy and they've had the MRIs and they've been to the neurologist and they're still suffering and nobody can figure it out.
One of the things that we recognize is we don't help anybody with everything.
Right.
As you're searching for a potential solution, all you're really trying to do is check boxes of potential. You just have to try this and try that. It can get really frustrating for people going to practitioner after practitioner who are telling them they're going to help them and then they don't.
Yes. Do you have any guidelines? If I'm a patient in that situation that I described which I have been, what advice would you have for someone like that? How would you say-- do you have any criteria or how would you go about feeling reasonable about going to yet another doctor?
Well, I would just suggest that you don't give up hope. If you haven't checked the box, if you haven't tried it, when you're ready, it's something to have on your list of things to try. If you can find a good clinician that is passionate about that area-- not everything and not everyone is always equal and so some people are extraordinarily passionate about an area and some people are less passionate about it.
You just want to make sure that you try to work with somebody that you believe is doing the best job that can be done for you at that point in time and there's a lot of really great chiropractors out there, so they don't have to come to Calgary.
Okay. [laughs]
It's a sad thing if everybody had to come and see me. That's a tragedy. That's a real reason why I donate so much of my time back to the profession, is because the people who came before me did stuff that developed the profession far enough for it to make a dramatic impact on my sister's health and my sister's life and then on the health and life of my family and pretty much everybody that I know.
It's an incredible thing that we're able to deliver as upper cervical chiropractors or chiropractors focusing in the upper neck. It doesn't do everything for anybody and so we don't want to overpromise and underdeliver. Yet simultaneously, when somebody is suffering with a health condition, then it's a good thing to look and make sure if you think you've injured your neck, or even if you don't think, why not just check and make sure that your neck is healthy and okay?
Yes, so I would like to comment on that and then you as an expert, if you can comment on my comment, [chuckles] I really resonated with what you said, that you don't want to promise something that you can't deliver. When I first started and I hadn't been helped, he said, I can find a bone out of alignment pinching nerves in your neck and I knew there was something wrong with my neck.
That resonated with me. He didn't promise that my life was going to be kumbaya from that on but I knew that there was a problem in my neck. I also would like to say, we started by talking about the importance of the neck. Even if you don't know that you have a problem in the neck, maybe it's smart to check it out once in a while.
Yes, that's exactly it. I mean, how do you know if you have a cavity in your teeth unless you go to your dentist? Maybe you floss and brush every day.
You started talking about giving a lecture to dentists and even though you made the point that you believe the neck is even more important than the jaw, you're by no means saying the jaw is not important.
Exactly. The jaw is very important. It's crucial.
Yes. Also maybe if you have a cavity, they don't go and see you.
That's right. I would be the wrong person for the cavity. Absolutely. I would absolutely refer to the dentist for the cavity. You had asked a little bit about the specialty and the term specialist is a protected term in--
Great. I'm so glad you're going there. Please describe that. Specialist is being thrown around too easy.
It is. I wouldn't be considered a specialist in my province in Canada where I live because the upper cervical spine isn't something that has that specialty designation yet in our province. If I lived in--
In Texas, it actually does.
If I lived in Texas, if I lived in Florida, I've done all the things that I would need to do to be considered a specialist, but I'm not in my area where I practice. That doesn't mean that I don't absolutely have as much information as I can possibly have about the area and focus my practice then.
Yes, so do you want to explain real quick, it's confusing, why you can be a specialist? You are training people who can be specialists, and yet you can't use that term yourself. Can you just real quick go into why that is?
Well, it could be confusing, but it's basically just the regulatory body that oversees is done on a province-by-province or state-by-state basis.
Essentially politics.
Essentially politics and requirements, and so because there isn't such a thing in my province as a specialist in the cranial cervical junction, I can't be one because it doesn't exist. We would have to create it just as we created this and it's now available in Texas to be called a specialist, in Florida and other states. We are in the process of creating it because we know the neck is vital and complex enough that it deserves a dedicated practitioner and that is who I am. If I practiced in another jurisdiction, I have all the credentials to be considered a specialist in a jurisdiction that would recognize this as a specialty.
Also, you were one of the leaders who started the program called a diplomate.
It's a diplomate in Chiropractic Craniocervical Junction Procedures.
Okay, and you were part of the committee, the first group of teachers that started this program?
Well, when it started, I was Vice President of the Council on Upper Cervical of the International Chiropractors Association that puts on the diplomate. What happens in higher education and most people would know this, you finish high school or you don't finish high school, but if you finish high school and you go on to college or university, then you do a degree or a diploma.
If you've done a degree, then maybe you continue on and you can become a chiropractor and you can become all sorts of different professions and that's a Doctor of Chiropractic Degree. Then once you've done your Doctor of Chiropractic Degree, what you can do is you can move on and do continued education in areas of focus, and then you would be a diplomat in that area.
A diplomate in Chiropractic Craniocervical Junction Procedures is somebody who's studied the upper neck, the craniocervical junction, and the procedures and the neurology and the physiology and the anatomy of that area and has passed certain board exams and done a certain amount of research into the area so that they are board certified in that area to have that designation.
Yes, and it's intense. It's a lot of work and a lot of time. A large commitment. Do you want to describe that commitment a little bit?
I am so fortunate in my life to have had people come before me who did a lot of work that I could just build on. The initial meeting of the group that eventually started the council on Upper Cervical Chiropractic was called by a person by the name of Gerry Clum who at the time was President of Life Chiropractic College West in the San Francisco Bay Area of California.
He called together leaders of the profession. I wasn't in that meeting representing my procedure which is NUCCA was a guy by the name of Lee Yardley and a group of people got together and they recognized the need for these organizations that were studying the upper neck and chiropractic to collaborate and come together and move outside of their own silos and start learning together.
What we wanted to do as that evolved, and I got involved maybe in phase two of that when there was already a council of the ICA and I was elected Vice President of that council and eventually the President of that council. What we wanted to do is we wanted to have people who are experts in their own procedures already, in my case, NUCCA, in other cases, there are other affiliate organizations and we wanted to have people who were expert enough in their procedures, learn together about the things that were common between their procedures.
When we talk about that and then we talk about the anatomy of the upper neck, we talk about the biomechanics of the upper neck, the neurology of the upper neck, we would talk about imaging, we could talk about a lot of things relative to what's going on, how to collaborate with other professionals relative to that. There's basically two and a half years worth of seminars that you would go to for 12-hour weekend seminars--
Unless there's a pandemic in the middle?
Unless there's a pandemic, it's difficult and sometimes it takes four years if there's a pandemic which is what happened here. You're learning all of these things together, and you have, I think, 27 weekends and along the way you have testing. I'm in charge of the testing right now.
And research, right?
You have to do research, yes. The idea was that if we learn together, then we can-- the challenge that exists is that in a human being at any moment in time, there is a situation that's happening in their neck. It's either normal or it's not normal. It's either injured or it's not injured.
Yes, sounds fair.
If it's injured and it's not normal, then what our job as clinicians-- our job as clinicians is to recognize what's happening there and try to move it back towards normal as I said earlier. The reality of the situation is that we don't know everything about the area and what I know this year is more than what I knew last year, and I hope what I know in 10 years is more than I know right now.
We're learning and we're moving and we're pushing this knowledge base forward. It's very exciting to be involved with it because by being involved, I get to learn more and that allows me to help my patients. When I do retrospective analysis on my patient population and I see that chronic people-- so people come in with chronic conditions, 10 or 11 chief complaints on average.
After six weeks of working with me, that 94% of them tell me that something is better and some chronic issue that they've had for years is better. 80% are telling me that something 70% to 100% better because those are my metrics in my practice. What I know is that that means 6% have nothing better and I'm there for the entire 6%. That's what drives me forward because I want to understand, is there something that I don't know that I missed, that I could've done better to have helped a larger percentage more?
The answer to that is yes. It's always that 10 years ago, I didn't know things that I know now that the people that I didn't help 10 years ago maybe I can help today. When you have a passion for this and you get to see patients and you get to interact with them and you get to see how their lives are changed by doing what we're doing with them, it's very inspiring to me to continue to try to do that better tomorrow.
I so respect what you're saying and I see that in all the top doctors that we know from history that have moved the needle forward in helping more people into the Blair technique. I know a lot about Dr. Blair and he had a similar motivation. He got stellar great results, but not every time. He just couldn't stop thinking about the people he couldn't help and so that's how he came to new realizations and a new way of treating people and that's basically what you're saying. I think you actually already answered my next two questions, but I will ask them anyway and see if you have any more to add.
Please.
The first thing is, this is a question that I actually heard a chiropractor that I know ask me because my husband Dr. Gordon Elder had just enrolled in the Diplomate program and we were both really excited about it. We were telling this other chiropractor about it and wanting the individual to consider it themselves. Their response was, "Why would you want to do all that?"
That's that question. I'm asking that on behalf of a chiropractor that I heard voice that. The second thing is, if I'm a patient why does it matter whether my doctor is a diplomate or not?
To the first one, it's an interesting question, isn't it? Because you say, well why would I want to do that? Well, it's about the patients, that's the reason. If your practice is that you would like to maximize the monetary compensation that you are getting for seeing individuals, and you're not very worried about how well they're doing, then there's absolutely no reason that you should learn more.
What you should do is probably have very little interest in your patients, be more interested in golf or wine tasting or something like that and do the very minimum you can for your patients so that you don't have to worry about it and make sure that you have a good line presence and try to be in a big center that your reputation is not observed.
The challenge is that when you are like your husband or myself or obviously you by doing this podcast, when you've recognized what's happening with patients and you recognize that you could do better and you can learn more and that you don't know everything because every time you move the needle into the stuff that you know you don't know now, then you realize the expanse of how much you don't know.
You can continue to learn and know more, but as you do that you realize that as you turn a corner you don't know more. A person who had asked that question is a person who really has a very small amount of information and there's an effect called the Dunning–Kruger effect where people that know very little overestimate their capabilities and people who know a lot underestimate their capabilities and that's the challenge.
What we want to do is as a council on upper cervical, we have a number of different things that we're trying to do. One is, provide continued education for chiropractors that are interested in understanding more about the upper cervical spine. We want to do that for people who are already fully focused in the upper cervical spine like I was before I did that, but we also want to do that for general chiropractors to just learn more because every patient that comes into them has a neck.
Has a neck. Yes.
Then the reason I'm sitting here with you also Ruth is because another big thing about the council on upper cervical chiropractic is educating the public because there are a tremendous amount of people suffering without the knowledge of a potential solution and they don't have a possibility of even seeing a chiropractor who has the level of training that we have.
Actually, I'm just going to interlude real quick right there, and if you're wanting to know where you can find a good upper cervical doctor, I will put links in the show notes to where you can find that or you can contact me and I can help guide you whether it's in Calgary or wherever you are.
Again, when you put those links and you see that there's the Council on Upper Cervical Chiropractic and they have affiliate organizations, we've mentioned two NUCCA, which is one that I'm past President of, and Blair which is one that your husband is very involved with.
And past President of. [laughs]
And past President of. When you look there you'll see a bunch of practitioners that are also very dedicated. They might not have done the Diplomate yet, but they have tremendous skills also.
That's true.
You can look in those organizations it's not just the diplomates.
Yes, that's true.
The diplomates and the board-certified diplomates have done just a certain different thing, and there's a level of complexity of a case that we are trying to help manage even for our colleagues that are interested in doing their techniques really well which are part of the affiliate organizations, which you can put the links in.
Yes, I will do that.
Then there are wonderful chiropractors that aren't only focused in the upper neck that also recognize that the neck is important and that do great work and so it's just about making sure that you try chiropractic first.
Yes.
Try, and then recognize that chiropractic has levels as well and has different areas of focus. If you think you have a neck problem that is not been adequately diagnosed or classified, that hasn't been adequately intervened with, then just don't stop. Just keep looking and searching until you find somebody who can tell you if this is a problem and could help you by hopefully fixing the problem or leading you to somebody who can help you fix the problem.
Yes, and I will say as somebody who's had a really severe neck injury from early childhood myself, nobody told me I had a neck injury, but I knew I had a neck injury. Even my doctors told me, no you don't. I knew I did. I kept searching until I found somebody who could fix it. That's my encouragement, keep looking. I want to switch gears a little bit.
We've talked a little bit about your background, we've talked about learning, and we've talked about a lot of decisions happen because people don't know, don't have the information. I think that comes with the general public. It maybe comes with general chiropractors, it also comes with governing bodies. It's why you can't be recognized as a specialist because in your province people don't know about it. You just came back from an exploratory trip to the world.
What are you hoping to see as a profession and where are you leading and envisioning that the upper cervical profession will go in the next 10 to 20 years? You're making some of that happen, taking steps to make sure that happens.
Ruth, that's such a big question, isn't it?
Yes. Can you answer it in about five-ish minutes?
Yes, for sure. Well, I won't give you the whole answer, but I'll give you a part of the answer. There's only 90 countries in the world that have chiropractors and there's 103,000 chiropractors in the world as of 2019. The people who focus on the upper neck like we do, are less than 1% to 2% of those chiropractors and so so many people in the world don't have access to even general chiropractic or basic forms of chiropractic.
Of those 103,000 chiropractors, how many of them are in the North American--
Well, I believe that 80,000, somewhere in that neighborhood, 85,000 are in Canada and the United States.
Yes, that's what I'm heading-- yes.
When you get into even the rest of North America, Mexico, and Central America, it's much less common. South America--
Yes, and not to speak of the rest of the world.
Yes. There's chiropractors that are in countries in the world. If you're listening from somewhere that's not in North America or you're probably in the United States--
I do have listeners actually from all continents.
That's right. I'm sure you do. The idea would be that unfortunately, you'd have to travel probably at this point to be able to see somebody who has enough expertise in this area. What we needed to do as a group when we got out of our silos and started working together is we had to first define what it is that we do. Today, we presented on something that hopefully will be published next year, which is a document that is a standards of practice document for upper cervical chiropractors. It's defining what it means to be an upper cervical chiropractor.
That's exciting.
That project was started when I was the President in around 2014. Dr. Joey Miles was the first special committee chair on standards. Right now, for the last five or six years, Dr. Tyler Evans has really been spearheading that and he's done wonderful work on that, and it was presented today. It's really exciting. First, we define it, right? We define it and we agree on it.
Yes, and that will help with education.
Then that helps with understanding it and educating in it. Those are the kinds of things that we're trying to do is if we can train in it, if we can define it, then people can understand it. They can seek it out. They can understand if they've had it, if they've not had it, right?
Right.
These are such basic things. You think about where we are and we're really in the infancy. When we think, in my jurisdiction, they don't recognize what I'm doing as a specialist yet, it doesn't mean it won't happen. There are just certain criteria that have to be met eventually for us to be able to make that happen. There's so much to do. There's such wonderful people to work with on it and there's so much fun to have while you're passionately trying to move this forward.
I love being involved in it. What we hope to see is that chiropractic spreads around the world and that upper cervical chiropractors are in every country in the world and able to help people.
That is my passion. As you can tell, I am not from America originally because I don't speak with a Texan accent. [laughs] It breaks my heart that in my own home country in Norway, I know people who need this, who understand upper cervical care and want it and they can't have it. You just came back from Europe and there will be classes in Europe, hopefully, the first one taught in November. Optimistically, it may be next year, but we're shooting for November.
If you're in a country in Europe and you're thinking, I want some more information in knowing about the standards of upper cervical, what is it? Maybe you know a chiropractor that is searching to expand or you're a patient and you want to talk to your doctor about it, maybe contact me and I'll put you in touch with the right people. How's that?
It's beautiful.
If you're listening to this and you're not in North America and you're not in Europe, but you're thinking you may want it near you, contact me and we'll see what we can do.
Absolutely.
Right?
Yes. Besides you, because this is always evolving, they should reach out to you for sure, but there's also uppercervicalcare.com, which is a listing site that chiropractors who identify as somebody who's focusing in the upper neck can self-register.
The reason I'm saying talk to me is not because I know everything, but I know who those people are and I can put you in touch with the right people. If all else fails, I'll say, Dr. Scholten, who should this person talk to?
Absolutely. Well, Ruth, you're doing a wonderful thing here. This has been just a lot of fun.
Thank you for being here. I've asked you some questions, but you know so much. Maybe there's something I don't know about that I haven't asked you because I don't know and you want to talk about. Is there anything else that you want to tack on at the end here?
We've covered a very broad spectrum of information, and one of the challenges is that when you get so deep in the rabbit hole like me, you get a little brain-damaged because you don't know what people necessarily need to know. I think that the key thing, because our audience, I think that you've described is people who are maybe sick or suffering and are looking for help.
The key thing, I think relative to this is just for us to all recognize that there is a possibility that there's somebody in the world that can help and so don't give up hope. Try to figure it out and know that we're working to try to make sure that there's more people who can help in the world.
Right, yes. More people who can help more people more of the time. That's what it's all about, right?
That's it.
Thank you so much, Dr. Scholten. As one of your colleagues said yesterday, you're super busy, you don't have five extra minutes, and yet you've shared this much time with us and we don't take that lightly, so thank you.
It's been my pleasure. Thanks for having me.