50% of What I Teach You is Wrong!

When I was going to school there was a sage instructor who, before each lesson, would say to us "50% of what I'm going to teach you is wrong, I'm just not sure which 50%". We used to laugh. After all how could this be? How could information obtained using the best science of the time be incorrect, ever.

It's come true! I have been in practice for 23 years and LOTS of things I took to be the absolute truth, are now "wrong". This became apparent the other day when I was filling out a questionnaire. I'll explain.

I have to do continuing education if I want to continue to practice. The requirements are minimal really and I always get more hours than I need. Every chiropractor in Canada has to carry liability insurance and every year, the liability insurance carrier sends out a "Risk Management Questionnaire" that you can do. If you choose to answer the questionnaire you can get a break on the cost of your insurance and a couple of other things. I choose to do them because I enjoy learning stuff. They're usually pretty straight forward and not very difficult. This year the questions covered Disc Disorders. Piece of cake right? A chiropractors bread and butter! No problem. Ahhhh, not so fast bucky.

50% of what I was taught was wrong! I learned a whole pile of interesting bits of information and some things I thought I already knew. In school we used to say the questions didn't change, just the answers. Let me tell you, the answers changed! How is this important. Well, often when you get home from a seminar you pack up your stuff and NEVER look at the things that you learned. They're interesting, but not interesting enough to change the way you do things. The stuff I learned from the questionnaire changes how I do things in the office Monday morning, period.

What's the lesson here? Life changes, be willing to evaluate the changes and big enough to make change in yourself. Or, as someone much bigger than me said it, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference."

Have a good one, don't do anything silly.

Dr. Mike