What happens when a chiropractor decides to go to medical school? In this conversation, I sit down with Dr. Richard Schoonmaker, a former chiropractor turned osteopathic medical student, to talk about why he made the switch, what he learned about evidence-based care, and how chiropractic and medicine can actually work together when done responsibly.

What We Discuss:

• Why Dr. Schoonmaker left chiropractic to pursue medicine

• The difference between chiropractic and osteopathic training

• How to spot red flags in online chiropractic content

• The truth about chiropractic care for babies and kids

• What evidence-based, collaborative care could look like

• How modern medicine can build trust by listening better

To connect with Richard Schoonmaker follow him on Instagram at @richs_oms2 and TikTok at @rich_oms2. 

We’d like to know who is listening! Please fill out our ⁠Listener Survey⁠ to help us improve the show and learn about you!

00:00 – Intro

02:00 – Meet Dr. Richard Schoonmaker

03:00 – From Chiropractic to Medicine

07:15 – What He Took From Chiropractic Into Medicine

08:15 – Evidence-Based Chiropractic vs. Online Myths

10:00 – Why Some Chiropractors Go Viral (and Off the Rails)

16:00 – How Chiropractors Are Trained (and Where Gaps Exist)

21:20 – The Lack of Oversight in Pediatric Chiropractic Care

24:00 – The Supportive (Not Substitutive) Role of Chiropractic

28:30 – Common Reasons Parents Seek Chiropractic Care for Kids

33:10 – What the Research Actually Supports

36:30 – Understanding OMM in Osteopathic Medicine

40:00 – Why Context Matters: Symptom Relief vs. Causation

43:00 – The True Meaning of Holistic Care

45:00 – Calling Out Misinformation Responsibly

48:00 – The Real Reason Patients Seek Alternative Care

49:40 – Building a Better Relationship Between Chiropractors and Physicians

51:45 – How Parents Can Find a Safe, Evidence-Based Chiropractor

54:50 – Final Thoughts and Where to Find Richard

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00;00;00;12 – 00;00;36;06

Richard Schoonmaker

Manual therapy itself. Evidence is not strong in pediatric populations. There is some low to moderate grade evidence for very specific conditions, but for the more I’ll say like systemic or even visceral types of conditions, whether it is like, more developmental delays, developmental conditions, if it has to do with colic or things like that. I, in my opinion, little to no evidence for those.

 

00;00;36;08 – 00;00;57;12

Dr. Mona

Welcome back to the PedsDocTalk podcast. I’m Doctor Mona, your friendly neighborhood pediatrician and osteopathic physician. Many of you may not know that I’m a doctor or osteopathic doctor, and that’s different from an MD. Maybe another podcast episode can dive deeper into the differences. But if you didn’t know osteopathic medicine and chiropractic care actually share a few things in common.

 

00;00;57;15 – 00;01;25;23

Dr. Mona

We both look at the body as a whole and understand how structure and function are connected. In osteopathic medical school, we learn something called OMM osteopath Manipulative Medicine. It’s hands on care that helps the body heal itself through techniques like gentle stretching, mobilization, or muscle energy work. It’s somewhat similar to chiropractic adjustments. But here’s the key difference. OMM is taught within the full scope of medical training, grounded in anatomy, physiology, and evidence based practice.

 

00;01;25;26 – 00;02;00;04

Dr. Mona

We learn when to use it and just as importantly, when not to. And that’s why I wanted to have this conversation today. Because while there are incredible chiropractors out there who stay in their lane and truly help people, I was one of them. During pregnancy, I had awful sacral pain and seeing a chiropractor helped me so much. It’s often not those practitioners who go viral, it’s the ones online doing high velocity cracks on children’s necks, selling gimmicks, spreading vaccine misinformation or claiming they can adjust away autism or ADHD that gets the clicks.

 

00;02;00;06 – 00;02;21;03

Dr. Mona

And that’s not fair to the chiropractors who are actually helping people responsibly. So today, we’re getting honest about it all with someone who knows both sides. My guest, Doctor Richard Schumacher, is a former chiropractor who’s now an osteopathic medical student. We’re unpacking why he made that switch. What chiropractic care can offer and what parents need to know before bringing their kids to one.

 

00;02;21;06 – 00;02;37;01

Dr. Mona

Make sure to subscribe, download, and share this episode, because that’s how the show grows and how I can keep bringing you these real, nuanced conversations. Let’s get into it.

 

00;02;37;03 – 00;02;39;21

Dr. Mona

Thank you so much for joining me today, Richard.

 

00;02;39;23 – 00;02;48;14

Richard Schoonmaker

I really appreciate it’s, it’s about time that we were able to finally sit down and get our schedules to finally coincide, and we can sit down, finally talk. Yeah. Great to be here. Thank you.

 

00;02;48;16 – 00;03;03;02

Dr. Mona

About time. And student doctor Richard Schoomaker is what I should say. But, you know, like, for anyone listening here. Me and Richard have connected over social media. So he has an account as of today, I think it’s called riches. So Rick underscore Mr..

 

00;03;03;02 – 00;03;04;24

Richard Schoonmaker

Right, I believe so, yes.

 

00;03;04;26 – 00;03;23;28

Dr. Mona

It may change as you go through different years. Correct? Yeah. So as of today, that’s the handle. And I connected with him because I saw some of his videos come up on my explore page, and he was making sense of sort of out landing chiropractic information online. And I was like, I like this guy because I myself have seen a chiropractor.

 

00;03;23;28 – 00;03;40;15

Dr. Mona

I think they’re very useful in this world. But there’s this sort of balance of like how far are we going where it’s now just starting to be some pseudoscience information. And so I connected with him, and this was right when he was about to start medical school. He was so busy, busier than I am as a practicing clinician and mom.

 

00;03;40;15 – 00;03;55;00

Dr. Mona

And that says a lot, right? So know that your medical students are super busy and we connected. It wasn’t the right time and now we’re able to record this. And I think you agree that it’s actually a better time now to record this versus when you started medical school a year ago, right?

 

00;03;55;03 – 00;04;19;09

Richard Schoonmaker

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. It’s like you just said, the amount of, I’ll say just what is required of a medical student, especially initially, the shock value of beginning school, even leading up to school, the application process and matriculating. It is a lot to handle and I think especially right now, way more appropriate compared to back then, at least my ability, the mental capacity, the emotional capacity to be able to sit here even definitely much more appropriate.

 

00;04;19;11 – 00;04;37;25

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And I remember you know, for me, first year and also third year medical school was I think, the hardest, you know, for sure. You’re obviously getting into that whole world. You’re taking all these exams and even trying to learn differently. And, you know, the exams is sometimes like I had to change what I used to know that, you know, an undergrad, maybe I studied one way in medical school.

 

00;04;37;25 – 00;04;53;16

Dr. Mona

I was trying to have to study a different way to retain information, and that took a lot out of you. And then third year obviously with rotations. So I think we got each other at a good time. And, you know, one of the reasons I was so excited to have you on is because you were formerly a chiropractor.

 

00;04;53;16 – 00;05;06;27

Dr. Mona

So what initially drew you to chiropractic care? And then that second question is what made you decide that, you know what I want to actually go to medical school. So in this case osteopathic medical school.

 

00;05;06;29 – 00;05;31;11

Richard Schoonmaker

Yeah, I think so. Initially when I first had the idea of even applying to chiropractic school, I was still in college. I actually was in university for five years because the first couple years I wanted to be a lawyer. I had the o path to law school and then eventually just realize it wasn’t for me. But so I switched gears and over time, I think I had an injury when I was in college and I was helped by a chiropractor.

 

00;05;31;11 – 00;05;49;27

Richard Schoonmaker

I went to a chiropractor who helped, significantly with, I think it was just a back injury. And it was a very straightforward, very what we would call evidence based care. No frills. This is what you need to do. It was if you walked into this office, it would probably work like a physical therapist office if you didn’t know any better.

 

00;05;49;29 – 00;06;08;12

Richard Schoonmaker

And it kind of just it convinced me, like, wow, this really helped me. And I knew I wanted to help people. I just didn’t really know what kind of mode, that I wanted to help people. And I just knew it had something to do with health care. And over time, it just eventually ended up being chiropractic care, chiropractic school that I applied to.

 

00;06;08;14 – 00;06;34;11

Richard Schoonmaker

And I, I mean, I enjoyed chiropractic school. I practiced for a few years after I graduated, but the entire time that I had or was in formal practice, I also practice alongside a family physician. And I think over time I started as I started to mature and I started to interact with patients more. And because I was in a family practice, I saw, I mean, just as well as, you know, many different conditions coming in, whether or not I could treat them.

 

00;06;34;14 – 00;06;54;01

Richard Schoonmaker

And I just realized over time that what I was doing as a chiropractor wasn’t really how I had envisioned helping people treating patients. And I started to really appreciate and enjoy what the family physician was able to do. And I wanted to be able to emulate that. I wanted to be able to help patients in that form of care.

 

00;06;54;04 – 00;07;13;16

Richard Schoonmaker

And I think just one day I realized the story goes, my partner and I were walking through Barnes and Noble, and I saw the Kaplan test textbooks. Yeah, on the top shelf. And I turned to my partner. I said, hey, do you think I would have any chance at being accepted to medical school? And she kind of stood there for a moment and just said, yeah, you can do it.

 

00;07;13;18 – 00;07;17;27

Richard Schoonmaker

I was like, you should not have said that, because now you know.

 

00;07;17;28 – 00;07;18;21

Dr. Mona

It’s in your brain.

 

00;07;18;21 – 00;07;38;16

Richard Schoonmaker

Yeah, exactly. Yep, exactly. I bought the textbooks and so began studying and here we are. And I think what I, what I will always emphasize, though, is that even though I’m not a chiropractor any longer, there were a lot of aspects of chiropractic care that I thankfully could bring in to medical school, and I think have actually helped me a lot.

 

00;07;38;18 – 00;07;54;22

Richard Schoonmaker

Just because I don’t want to practice chiropractic care doesn’t mean that there wasn’t anything extremely beneficial for how I experience it. It’s just not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And I mean, it was a career change and I’m happy I made it, but I don’t regret it in any way.

 

00;07;54;24 – 00;08;14;05

Dr. Mona

I love that. And, you know, I don’t know if many of our listeners know this, but a lot of osteopathic medical students have had jobs before becoming osteopathic physician. So I graduated medical school in 2012. Wow. So yeah, 2012 is when I graduated medical school, so I went I also went to an osteopathic medical school. I think most of my followers know that.

 

00;08;14;05 – 00;08;38;14

Dr. Mona

But if you don’t, I am a. I went to 80 still University, which is in Arizona, and a lot of my colleagues had careers before lawyers, businessmen, business, women, felt like chiropractors as well. And that’s not as common in MD, schools. So you have allopathic medical schools and then you have osteopathic medical schools. We could do a whole other conversation around the differences between allopathic and osteopathic care.

 

00;08;38;14 – 00;09;04;16

Dr. Mona

But that’s not this, conversation. But the point is, I also saw the benefits of my colleagues who were actually older. I remember having a 52 year old friend in medical school when I was in my 20s, who chose this as her second career. And that’s also hard, right? Having to learn this level of information. When you have older children, your brain is not as sharp as it used to be when you’re in your 20s, and maybe you got used to learning a certain way.

 

00;09;04;19 – 00;09;16;04

Dr. Mona

But, you know, you talked about something that I thought was really awesome, and you just you alluded to it, you know, you saw evidence based chiropractic care as you practiced. And how many years was it, again, that were.

 

00;09;16;07 – 00;09;17;22

Richard Schoonmaker

I practiced for three years.

 

00;09;17;27 – 00;09;36;17

Dr. Mona

Okay. Amazing. I mean, that’s actually a really good amount of time to kind of get, you know, obviously to see what was going on. And did you see a lot of the online non evidence based information we see chiropractors sometimes talk about. And the reason I’m bringing that up is that I think there is a negative perception of chiropractors online.

 

00;09;36;19 – 00;10;00;13

Dr. Mona

And the example I give is that there’ll be a doctor a doctor share something. And the comment will immediately be, how did I know you were a chiropractor before I even saw your your profile? And it’s usually a negative dig because that person is spreading misinformation. And I have a hard time with that because like I mentioned at the intro, I saw a chiropractor during my son’s birth or sorry, during my son’s, pregnancy.

 

00;10;00;20 – 00;10;33;27

Dr. Mona

I had really bad sacrum sacral pain and she helped me so much. I do not dig chiropractors, but what I do not like is the misinformation around vaccines, the misinformation, maybe overstepping boundaries of what their education is. You know, what they what they learned in chiropractor school. Did you see that while you were practicing, or did you see that more online or that sort of misinformation, coming out in terms of some chiropractors falling into that other realm of, how they, you know, what they talk about and what advice they’re giving their patients.

 

00;10;33;29 – 00;10;42;08

Dr. Mona

Now, let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsors who support helps us keep bringing you this show.

 

00;10;42;11 – 00;11;21;22

Richard Schoonmaker

Yeah, I, I started to see that type of content even when I was in chiropractic school. I think it was just over time. And we see this now at the age of information, social media, even thinking back when I was in college, Instagram was not really a thing. Yeah. And now, I mean, it’s everywhere. And so even within the past ten years or so, social media has enabled a very finite a few amount of individuals have very big voices, and especially within chiropractic, there are a few chiropractic influencers who have very large, audiences, and you see them all over the place and they create all of this very, I’ll just say, interesting content

 

00;11;21;22 – 00;11;50;04

Richard Schoonmaker

that in many cases is not aligned with evidence based care or evidence based medicine, or just evidence based chiropractic more specifically. And it’s unfortunate because they do have the largest audiences. And I saw it all the time when I was a student, when I was practicing. And it is unfortunate because a lot of people who seek out chiropractic care have already seen or had some type of interaction with, whether it’s another chiropractor, it’s someone they know who went to a chiropractor or now seeing it on social media.

 

00;11;50;04 – 00;12;08;06

Richard Schoonmaker

The amount of patients that I had seen as a chiropractor and say, oh, have you seen that those videos of them like wrapping that thing around the person’s neck and pulling it, I think they call it the Y strap. And I’d say, I’ve seen it. We will not be doing that here. Here’s why, etc. I said, yeah, so I, I did see a lot of that content when I was practicing chiropractic.

 

00;12;08;06 – 00;12;34;07

Richard Schoonmaker

It was unfortunate. It was a bit disheartening because, I think what doesn’t always get at least, what isn’t always perceived by those watching it is it sounds really cool, it looks really cool. And maybe there’s a perceived benefit, but you don’t always, notice the harm that those videos can create, what misinformation can do because it convinces people of something that is not factual.

 

00;12;34;09 – 00;12;58;27

Richard Schoonmaker

Rather than discussing the nuance of many things that are, you know, all things health, the human body, etc.. And those were always the conversations that I would end up having to have with patients trying to have, you know, an empathetic conversation while listening to them, acknowledging what they’re perceiving, what they’re thinking based upon this social media content, but also trying to get them to understand this is what you saw.

 

00;12;58;28 – 00;13;16;25

Richard Schoonmaker

But this is this is kind of really probably what’s happening or what’s going on, or the worse even is I don’t know, and nobody loves hearing that. But it was it was always very interesting seeing that content. When I was practicing as a chiropractor and trying not to align myself with those narratives we all too commonly see, unfortunately.

 

00;13;16;27 – 00;13;33;06

Dr. Mona

And I know we can’t get in those people’s heads. I know I wish we would like to get in the people’s heads of those that are creating that content, but, you know, seeing what you see. And I can also speak to it from a pediatrician lens on pediatricians that may do similar things online, any reason why they may say the things that they do, like, do we think that they believe it?

 

00;13;33;06 – 00;13;56;15

Dr. Mona

Do we think that it it gets the clicks? And then maybe that’s how they know they can get people following, because I can’t believe, I can’t believe that I would never say anything that is harmful. That could potentially, because that’s obviously someone’s health and life. You know, obviously you could say something outlandish with parenting because you’re not going to hurt a child, but with like physical manipulation or, you know, a treatment like there’s lives on the line there.

 

00;13;56;18 – 00;14;03;22

Dr. Mona

I just always wonder, like, where is the intent there. And maybe you may not know that answer, but do you have any insight as to why we may be doing that?

 

00;14;03;25 – 00;14;23;10

Richard Schoonmaker

I mean, with all things, it’s there’s probably multiple things. Yeah. Kind of factor into it. It’s it’s the whole like people don’t know what they don’t know. Yeah. I mean, we’re all human regardless of how educated one is. It doesn’t really matter what letters come after your name. We’re all human and we all fall for the same. Snakes, the same logical fallacies.

 

00;14;23;13 – 00;14;47;11

Richard Schoonmaker

It’s easy to fall for those because, I mean, that’s why they’re so prominent, especially on social media. But it’s probably there are deep seated beliefs in a lot of these narratives that you’ll hear whether or not it is due to malicious intent or again, going back to you don’t know what you don’t know. It’s really easy to make broad sweeping generalizations of very complex and nuanced topics.

 

00;14;47;11 – 00;15;08;26

Richard Schoonmaker

For example, we hear all the time vaccines, even as a second year, medical student, as a physician, I mean, I definitely don’t know all there is to know about vaccines. I know vaccines save lives. I know that for a fact. But I couldn’t sit here and give you electron vaccines. It’s there’s way too much about it. There’s the biology behind it, the physiology, the physiological effect on the human body.

 

00;15;08;26 – 00;15;50;02

Richard Schoonmaker

But then there’s, epidemiological ethical components to it, trying to explain all of those different factors and then apply that to a social media post. It’s very difficult. So whether or not it is just not knowing or not knowing what you don’t know, if it is because of malicious intent, if it is because it gets clicks, it’s probably a combination of all these things and different values per person, because some people I know, some people or some chiropractors who have some interesting beliefs but really do care about patients, they they care about their patients more than anything, but they fall for some of these narratives that just, unfortunately, are not likely to be based in

 

00;15;50;05 – 00;15;58;29

Richard Schoonmaker

scientific and what I’ll say. So I, I hesitate to say truth, but scientific fact, scientific truth, scientific research, for example.

 

00;15;59;02 – 00;16;13;19

Dr. Mona

I have a hard time believing that a chiropractor is able to give balanced education about vaccines. And I don’t know if you agree with that statement and I can go on as to that, but I just from that statement alone, do you agree or disagree?

 

00;16;13;25 – 00;16;15;12

Richard Schoonmaker

I would I would agree, okay.

 

00;16;15;15 – 00;16;47;28

Dr. Mona

And that is what I have a hard time with. Right. Like, you know, obviously they are specialists in physical manipulation. And we’ll go over how that differs from you know, oh man. Which I think it’s really important that people learn about what we learn about in osteopathic medical school. But that is what I have a hard time consuming online when it’s the eye and it is that the joke that I told you, someone said that, oh, this must be a chiropractor because it’s it tends to be the chiropractor giving false misinformation, disinformation, whatever you want to call, call it around something maybe related to child development or vaccines.

 

00;16;47;28 – 00;17;08;04

Dr. Mona

And I’m like, no, no, no. And the reason I say that, and I’m just curious about what education level I went into pediatric, it’s its own specialty to know about child development, to know about vaccines. I learned a lot of that in residency, right? In residency, not medical school, is where I learned about vaccines, child nutrition, all of that because that is residency.

 

00;17;08;06 – 00;17;21;28

Dr. Mona

What level of education do you get in chiropractor school? Or is it that just say you want to work with children and infants? Is it that you go to chiropractor school and then specialize? Or how does that work for people who are treating infants and children as a chiropractor?

 

00;17;22;01 – 00;17;47;14

Richard Schoonmaker

Yeah. So what I definitely want to make sure I established first, or at least my perspective of the chiropractic education is strictly within the United States. Interestingly enough, depending on where you are in the world, the length and the content within the chiropractic curriculum can change drastically. I know students in, Canada, for example, I think some schools the curriculum is four years, whereas in the United States I’m pretty confident the standard is about three years and three months.

 

00;17;47;16 – 00;18;04;26

Richard Schoonmaker

I don’t know where the extra three months comes from. Yeah, that’s just like what I had to do. Exactly. And so the way my education was structured, the first two years were kind of didactic, like, you’re in the lecture hall, you have your physical exam labs, you have, thankfully, I still had a cadaver lab at the time.

 

00;18;04;29 – 00;18;25;24

Richard Schoonmaker

Patient exams. I think I said that already, but, manipulation techniques, all of that after that. The third year is when you kind of begin your outpatient, the, I’ll say, rotations. You’re in an outpatient clinic. So my school had a clinic. You went there as a student, you were supervised by another chiropractor, practicing chiropractor, and you saw actual patients.

 

00;18;25;24 – 00;18;57;15

Richard Schoonmaker

Your first, semester was with, students only of the school that came for chiropractic care when there’s, like, younger students coming in. And then after that first semester, you would see all outpatients from the surrounding communities. And that was a really good opportunity because it was, the clinic was there to support underserved communities, people who couldn’t afford, going to see a physical therapist going to pay for another chiropractor because they accepted all types of insurance, and they helped up the VA and pretty confident things along those lines.

 

00;18;57;15 – 00;19;23;06

Richard Schoonmaker

Local universities, even like there were a couple schools that could come in and receive care also. So that was really great. But in terms of what the education actually contained, it was primarily surrounded in it should be the chiropractic scope of practice, which is some depending on the state that you ask. It varies, but in general it’s they’ll say something along the lines of neuro musculoskeletal complaints, conservative management of neuro musculoskeletal complaints, low back pain, neck pain.

 

00;19;23;08 – 00;19;54;00

Richard Schoonmaker

Yeah. Ridiculous abilities from, say, like a disc herniation. As you fit a change, you don’t really need to get into the nitty gritty of all that. But those kinds of conditions, nothing very severe. Nothing invasive, no medications, no surgeries, nothing along those lines. When it came to pediatric care, my education was very limited. I can tell you, when I was still in the school, I think I may have had two three Max courses on pediatrics.

 

00;19;54;02 – 00;20;20;19

Richard Schoonmaker

The detail of those courses based upon my memory. So I’m there’s probably some bias in there, but I do not recall it being all that detailed and not nearly as detailed as the embryology courses that I’ve already had in medical school, the, childhood development courses that we’ve had, childhood exams. And that, as you know, this has just been my first year, I can’t even imagine what’s going to happen during year two and beyond.

 

00;20;20;22 – 00;20;51;27

Richard Schoonmaker

For example, you had mentioned residency. That’s where the real training. Yeah. You know, you don’t get any of that as a chiropractor. You do get, like I said, you’re in an outpatient clinic. Typically schools will, part of the, the end portion of the curriculum is you go out for your last couple months, your last semester to to a, an actual practice and established practice and work in that practice as kind of an intern, whether or not that practices pediatrics, anything along those lines, the problem is, is none.

 

00;20;51;27 – 00;21;22;22

Richard Schoonmaker

And this is really where the problem lies, is that none of it’s standardized, right? You’re not getting any standardized education in how to care for pediatric populations. As a chiropractor. There are other third party organizations. There are, for example, in chiropractic we have diplomats. So, for example, I actually have the chiropractic neurology diplomat. I got that a while ago because some of the patient population that I’d work in was like stroke rehab, but not like manipulation, like actual vestibular rehabilitation for stroke patients.

 

00;21;22;25 – 00;21;48;02

Richard Schoonmaker

But you can do a pediatric diplomate. I don’t really know what that entails all that much. I’ve seen the curriculum before, but again, none of it’s standardized by any overseeing organization that checks for consistency and evidence based care. And that’s that’s where a lot of my concern happens, because that’s also where you get a lot of different personalities, ideas and beliefs that can start influencing these things, and it can create more problems in some situations.

 

00;21;48;05 – 00;22;10;02

Dr. Mona

Well, that was exactly what I was going to ask. Is that that that sounds like my concern as well. Right? We talked about how residency training is three years for pediatrics. Right? I mean, it is intense training, as most of us would know, when we go to residency. It is not easy. I mean, I’m, I’m I’m getting a little bit of a flashback of how but but the fact that it was so difficult is why I learned so much.

 

00;22;10;02 – 00;22;27;25

Dr. Mona

You know, I kind of joke that it’s like a hazing, you know, you go through like a hazing, like a fraternity initiation, and you learn so much, you get so invested in the field because you’re like, well, I just did all that in three years. But that is where we learn all of this stuff. And so when there’s no subspecialty training, it sounds like you can get that diplomat.

 

00;22;27;25 – 00;22;46;06

Dr. Mona

But then also you need the hands on experience, right? So maybe you get the diplomat and you have three years of, you know, practicing in pediatric chiropractor care. But then we see online a lot of those bigger accounts saying using these sort of tools to screen for ADHD or screen for autism or, you know, don’t take this vaccine.

 

00;22;46;06 – 00;23;04;28

Dr. Mona

And I’m like that. What is that like? That’s not any. If we had that in pediatrics we would be using that. But it’s not evidence based. So you know, that is my concern. And you said that perfectly that in the children infant world, it sounds as if there is not some standard of overseeing body like the AAP, right?

 

00;23;04;28 – 00;23;26;06

Dr. Mona

The AP people know that we all take recommendations from the AAP. It doesn’t mean we’re all sheep and say, oh, AP, you are the best and everything you say is gold. But I always listen to what the AP says, and then I take it with clinical experience and I say, that makes sense. Or I think we’re missing a little bit of nuance, but there’s no body that does that in pediatric chiropractic care.

 

00;23;26;09 – 00;23;26;28

Richard Schoonmaker

 

00;23;27;00 – 00;23;40;11

Dr. Mona

And that’s, that’s concerning because then you said it, then you’re left feeling like, as a consumer, like as a parent, like trusting that person without any evidence always to back it up and saying like, yep, I’ve done this. But wait, what does that mean? You know?

 

00;23;40;18 – 00;24;05;01

Richard Schoonmaker

Exactly. And because, so for a, for example, for a child to or a parent to bring their child to a chiropractor, that chiropractor does not have to have the pediatric template either. They could just be a park that graduated from chiropractic school, had a standard outpatient clinic experience, had a standard chiropractic practice for their kind of intern rotation, and that’s it.

 

00;24;05;01 – 00;24;28;19

Richard Schoonmaker

They have no prior experience with, the pediatric population. They’re not. Well, or they don’t have a good knowledge foundation of those various nuances of childhood development, etc., etc.. And it, I’m not saying that inherently creates danger, but it’s one of those situations where, if they don’t know about the population, how can they really effectively treat it?

 

00;24;28;19 – 00;24;54;05

Richard Schoonmaker

And how can they effectively provide advice? Because that’s that’s the other thing too. I when I, I don’t want to get too caught up in is making people feel, like afraid of their child going to a chiropractor. Because even though a lot of the treatments that chiropractors do, I don’t really find are appropriate for the pediatric population, the one thing that is really, or can be beneficial, at least when I was still in practice as a chiropractor, is helping, especially new parents.

 

00;24;54;05 – 00;25;11;22

Richard Schoonmaker

I’m not a parent myself, so take this with a grain of salt. But helping new parents when they come in and they have all of these fears. Oh my goodness, our new baby is like having difficulty with nursing or they’re not going to the bathroom or they have colic. They’re fussy all the time. We can’t get her baby.

 

00;25;11;23 – 00;25;32;08

Richard Schoonmaker

Calm down. So, for one, what I could do in the practice I was that I could triage to the family physician. Right. And help them gain access quickly to another doctor. I could help them with advice. For example, like calming the nerves of the new parents, like, okay, I hear you. I understand what your concerns are. What?

 

00;25;32;08 – 00;25;52;02

Richard Schoonmaker

I do want you to know a lot of these things. What I never wanted to say to a new parent or really any patient, even these days, is. That’s normal. Now, she likes to hear that’s normal. When I would say something along the lines like this is expected. Like considering that your your newborn is two weeks old, I would expect them to, you know, their circadian rhythm is not set yet.

 

00;25;52;07 – 00;26;14;15

Richard Schoonmaker

They’re probably not going to be sleeping consistently every, you know, the same period of time throughout the night or during the day and maybe back and forth as that. You kind of get the picture, being able to provide just a comforting, like voice for new parents and help them find the doctor, the type of doctor that is appropriate for the situation they’re in.

 

00;26;14;18 – 00;26;34;07

Richard Schoonmaker

I would never, at least as long as I can think back. I never performed anything like manipulation. Having a high velocity, low amplitude manipulation. For the audience, that’s the cracking that you see on social media or YouTube. I would never perform that on a newborn or a baby. For children, I will admit, I have done it on children before.

 

00;26;34;09 – 00;26;56;12

Richard Schoonmaker

Looking back on that, I would never do it just because there’s no evidence to really support it. There’s some evidence for different types of manual therapy, but that’s more getting into like the physical therapy realm. And I’m not very well read on that. But that’s just a treatment that I wouldn’t recommend because there’s no point in doing that to especially an infant or baby.

 

00;26;56;15 – 00;27;25;11

Richard Schoonmaker

But at least the role of a chiropractor in pediatric care is can be a supportive role, especially for the parents, and gaining access to other aspects of care, too. It’s not all bad, it’s just more being or having a logical, critical, not critical, well, critical clinical thinking process as to how you would treat a pediatric patient as a chiropractor, not just going straight towards something like manipulation.

 

00;27;25;13 – 00;27;48;10

Dr. Mona

Now let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsors who support helps us keep bringing you this show. Oh well. I love that team approach. You know, obviously you having work closely with the family medicine doctor and saying, hey, here’s my limitations. Here’s where I would refer you to this person. It’s like as a general pediatrician, when I’m seeing someone and I refer to my specialist right or developmental specialist, right.

 

00;27;48;10 – 00;28;16;11

Dr. Mona

Hey, I think you need a speech therapist or I think you need a feeding therapist. That’s exactly what we would hope would go on here, is that we all understand our limitations and not overstep our educational experience. And also. Oh, yeah, let me try that. I just, you know, for me, like, even when I do procedures in my office or in residency, I would never, ever have the audacity to do a procedure, let alone LA, which I would agree as an awesome student as well in my day.

 

00;28;16;14 – 00;28;34;10

Dr. Mona

To do that on an infant or child. But cracking necks is not something I recommend on a lot of people. By the way, just because of, you know, risk of artery issues, all that. But that’s a whole other conversation. But it is knowing my limitations and saying, hey, do I feel confident doing this procedure? And if I don’t, who am I going to send you to?

 

00;28;34;12 – 00;28;51;26

Dr. Mona

Now, I know you do not obviously have the deployment in pediatrics, but what other reasons were parents coming to chiropractors? As you know, for their babies or children or maybe for your colleagues? Like what other conditions do you find that you you saw a lot of parents approaching chiropractic care for.

 

00;28;51;28 – 00;29;00;28

Richard Schoonmaker

The number one thing, it was definitely, either the perceived presence or the actual presence of ear infections.

 

00;29;01;00 – 00;29;01;18

Dr. Mona

Interesting.

 

00;29;01;20 – 00;29;22;12

Richard Schoonmaker

Yeah. And so that was always kind of an interesting conversation because, I mean you will now eons more than I will about especially like otitis media. But at the time what I understood was that there in terms of the percentage of middle ear infections, it could be viral, it could be bacterial. A lot of parents were always afraid.

 

00;29;22;12 – 00;29;38;18

Richard Schoonmaker

Well, I don’t want my child to go on antibiotics. I don’t want my child to have ear tubes. And I kind of have the conversation. Well, well, listen, I, I totally understand those fears. The last thing anybody wants is polypharmacy. We don’t want children to be on recurrent antibiotics, because there’s a whole host of reasons why that’s not good.

 

00;29;38;20 – 00;29;56;04

Richard Schoonmaker

I understand your fear of at least a parent of having tubes placed, because it’s surgical or minor surgical procedure, but a surgical procedure nonetheless. However, what I don’t want you to be fearful of is that if you go to a physician is that that’s just going to be the only thing they turn to. I know many physicians are like, okay, well, even with Aaron.

 

00;29;56;09 – 00;29;57;02

Richard Schoonmaker

Exactly, exactly.

 

00;29;57;04 – 00;29;58;17

Dr. Mona

Myself included. Yes.

 

00;29;58;19 – 00;30;25;09

Richard Schoonmaker

Because it’s even in my limited experience trying to diagnose an ear infection. It’s I mean, physicians are going based upon all the evidence they have to decide whether or not is this viral, is this bacterial? The unfortunate reality is sometimes you’ll be wrong, but that’s just how medicine, that’s how practice works. You’re practicing for a reason. But what I don’t want, didn’t want parents be so fearful of is that that’s the only options are medications or surgery.

 

00;30;25;09 – 00;30;47;26

Richard Schoonmaker

If you go to a physician as a chiropractor, they would want something alternative to that. Is there is it possible because I heard on social media, or my best friend took their, their baby to a chiropractor and they were able to help their ear infection because they did something with their neck and etc., etc., etc. and whether or not that’s true, I’m not really at liberty to say whether or not it actually happened.

 

00;30;47;28 – 00;31;07;29

Richard Schoonmaker

But in terms of helping that parent understand maybe what an ear infection is, giving them some things that maybe they can do at home just to like, calm infant down. It’s that’s kind of what they were looking for. They were looking for solution to help their child. It could have been anything. Ear infections. I think I mentioned before, colic.

 

00;31;08;02 – 00;31;27;14

Richard Schoonmaker

Just fussy babies or again, just advice on something that many times it’s outside the scope of chiropractic. So I’d have to just triage them to that family physician. I had had some patients come and they were asking about vaccines. I didn’t know anything about vaccines. I can’t help you with that. That’s outside my scope. I’m sorry.

 

00;31;27;16 – 00;31;48;02

Richard Schoonmaker

Anything along those lines and it was always interesting because many times, like I had said, it would actually be outside the scope of chiropractic, so I could only offer what I really knew, but I couldn’t tell them what they should do because I don’t. I didn’t know, honestly. But yeah, it was always very, very interesting, those types of conversations.

 

00;31;48;05 – 00;32;06;22

Dr. Mona

I had no idea about the ear infection. One is I have a lot of families who like to go see chiropractors because like I said, I’m very pro chiropractic care, right? Like if it’s a good chiropractor, I’m fine with it. And the biggest ones that I’ve heard is colic fussiness. Like you mentioned, bedwetting. I hear a lot of people going to.

 

00;32;06;24 – 00;32;36;26

Dr. Mona

Yeah, bedwetting. And then obviously on social those are the three three big ones. Colic fussiness, bedwetting. I didn’t know about the ear infection, but that kind of was making sense of like, you know, maybe they could do something to drain the Eustachian tube and we can chat about that in just a bit. And then the other big ones that I saw on social were the things that really rolled my eyes, which was the ADHD, autism treatments, which I’m like, I’m like, I’m one, you know, having gone through osteopathic medical school, I get that there is a connection between body, mind, muscles.

 

00;32;36;26 – 00;33;10;01

Dr. Mona

Is this is what we learn, right? But to say that we can manipulate the ADHD or autism out of somebody, I’m like, no. So my question to you is based on like the evidence you saw in in training, but also, you know, practicing, is there anything that in the pediatric world that does have good of like efficacy studies or good, you know, like, hey, we can actually help do this for ear, you know, ear infections or this, we can do this or is it a lot of it just stalled and a lot of it just experience like that’s kind of I guess my question for a lot of the listeners, that they may have

 

00;33;10;01 – 00;33;12;10

Dr. Mona

as well.

 

00;33;12;12 – 00;33;34;14

Richard Schoonmaker

The unfortunate answer is it was the last time that I had checked the literature. There wasn’t much evidence, especially for the most common chiropractic treatment being, yeah, what they call adjustments. What, medicine. Recall what I mentioned before, having a high velocity volume to do the cracking, for pediatric populations, for adult populations who can be useful for things like low back pain, neck pain, things along those lines.

 

00;33;34;14 – 00;33;51;02

Richard Schoonmaker

There is evidence for it there. But for children, not really so much. I, I can’t remember the exact paper, but I do remember, this was probably two years ago now, reading about manual therapy for things like, torticollis, for example. Yes. That’s.

 

00;33;51;02 – 00;33;56;16

Dr. Mona

Pretty the way we can physical therapy can physical therapists are phenomenal at two. And I’m saying like yeah, right.

 

00;33;56;19 – 00;34;19;07

Richard Schoonmaker

Exactly. So and that’s kind of where I start to, when I, when I read that paper, I was like, okay, well, this is this is physical therapy, right? This it’s when it and it should always be, what? I don’t want people to misunderstand. A lot of times when people say, because I’m kind of, simplifying the process, when when I say chiropractic care, the first thing people think of is the cracking.

 

00;34;19;09 – 00;34;56;11

Richard Schoonmaker

Chiropractic care is thankfully broader than just that. It does include anything from lifestyle advice, exercise, rehabilitation. There is some nutritional component if your state allows you to. It’s not just the manual therapy, it’s just manual therapy makes up a large part. But in terms of the manual therapy component of chiropractic care, there’s not much evidence to support its use for many of the conditions that you had just mentioned that you will see on social media, things like ADHD, that one always it grinds my gears a little bit.

 

00;34;56;11 – 00;35;25;00

Richard Schoonmaker

Yes, that yeah, backgrounds my years, the autism spectrum that one that that like hurts my soul. Yeah. Can I read that one? Because that is just such a gross miss. Understanding one of how the human body works, how manual therapy works, but more so than anything, what something like autism spectrum disorder is and I it’s I can talk about this all day like it’s a, it’s a very personal thing to me.

 

00;35;25;02 – 00;35;53;12

Richard Schoonmaker

But, trying to or saying that something like, a manual adjustment can somehow correct something like autism as though it’s something to correct and right that that hurts me. And it really upsets me to hear those types of things. And maybe that’s part of why I have the social media presence that I have to correct that misinformation, because it is so harmful and so hurtful in my opinion.

 

00;35;53;15 – 00;36;28;07

Richard Schoonmaker

But that’s that’s beside the point. I going back to the original question, manual therapy itself, evidence is not strong in pediatric populations. There is some low to moderate grade evidence for very specific conditions. But for the more, I’ll say like systemic or even visceral types of conditions, whether it is like, nursing isn’t what I would call systemic, but you kind of get the point, for more developmental delays, developmental conditions, if it has to do with colic or things like that.

 

00;36;28;10 – 00;36;31;29

Richard Schoonmaker

I, in my opinion, little to no evidence for those.

 

00;36;32;01 – 00;36;53;07

Dr. Mona

And I think this is a good segue to talk about what you’ve learned in your first year at an osteopathic medical school. And you already talked about terminology of like what people assume to be chiropractic care, which is the cracking. Right. Now I’m curious because I also went through osteopathic medical school and I learned om, which for anyone who’s not familiar is called osteopathic manipulative medicine.

 

00;36;53;07 – 00;37;24;07

Dr. Mona

And we also learned H. Feely, which is what, student doctor, Schoomaker was talking about. But that’s where you crack parts. But we also learned things like f flooring, things like needing stretching. So I described him as being like the middle ground of physical therapy and chiropractic care. And I’m I’m curious, having been a chiropractor, how would you describe what, is to someone who’s a chiropractor or maybe just someone who’s not a medical professional?

 

00;37;24;09 – 00;37;54;07

Richard Schoonmaker

Yes. So, is a, an I’m kind of an umbrella term for many different manual therapies, and I probably should have kind of defined what manual therapy is at the beginning. But manual therapy, for anybody listening or watching, think of it as some type of therapy that’s generally applied with the hands of the practitioner to effect something on the patient, whether it is, type of stretching, if it is trying to get a joint to crack anything like that.

 

00;37;54;09 – 00;38;19;22

Richard Schoonmaker

Osteopathic manipulative medicine is many different techniques, all with some of similar theories across the board. Different types of application for different types of purposes. Chiropractic care itself, the most common form of manual therapy, or chiropractic care, is the what they call the adjustment. What medicine calls for high velocity, low amplitude manipulation. Chiropractic is called the adjustment.

 

00;38;19;22 – 00;38;46;06

Richard Schoonmaker

And so when you apply a, very quick but kind of low amplitude. So it’s not like a large motion, but over a small distance, a force to, potentially cause a joint to what is called cavitation. It’s just gas bubbles coming out of the joint itself. It’s nothing breaking or snapping or anything along those lines. But, you can think of, la as being one very small part of them.

 

00;38;46;08 – 00;39;12;19

Richard Schoonmaker

It is an option. And this is actually what I really did appreciate from the, faculty at my school day one, even the, course director said, listen, everybody, this is the, course. You are medical students. I need you to understand something. When a patient comes in and they have some type of non non somatic symptom. So for everybody listening also think like a runny nose.

 

00;39;12;20 – 00;39;40;00

Richard Schoonmaker

They have a tummy ache. Something along those lines when they have if a patient has a non somatic symptom and you apply a manual therapy to them and suddenly that non somatic symptom gets better, you cannot just automatically attribute their improvement of the non somatic symptom due to the manual therapy. The reason that is is because the human body has a very strange way of one experiencing signs and symptoms express those signs and symptoms.

 

00;39;40;03 – 00;40;00;03

Richard Schoonmaker

But for all sorts of different reasons those can improve and or get they can get better, they can get worse, or they can say the same. But just because you apply a treatment and suddenly some random symptom improves, doesn’t mean that the treatment that you applied is directly responsible for that change. And I really appreciate you saying that because I’ve seen that in person.

 

00;40;00;06 – 00;40;27;11

Richard Schoonmaker

I’ve seen I’ve applied for the adjustment to somebody’s upper cervical spine and they’ll say, oh my goodness, my sinuses are training right now. Like I’m suddenly not congested. And it’s possible there was a component that was due to the treatment I applied. Was it the only reason? I cannot definitively say that. But on top of that, later on, towards the end of this past year, and block four was when my class learned heavily.

 

00;40;27;13 – 00;40;31;03

Richard Schoonmaker

So the cracking and it was interesting being to you.

 

00;40;31;05 – 00;40;32;12

Dr. Mona

Yeah. Yeah.

 

00;40;32;14 – 00;40;33;28

Richard Schoonmaker

So like many students said, Richard.

 

00;40;34;01 – 00;40;34;17

Dr. Mona

Yes.

 

00;40;34;18 – 00;40;41;19

Richard Schoonmaker

It was no secret. By the time we got there, I had been a chiropractor and even a lot of my professors knew. And it was it was nice because they would ask me my.

 

00;40;41;19 – 00;40;42;17

Dr. Mona

Experiences.

 

00;40;42;20 – 00;41;04;17

Richard Schoonmaker

Exactly just to see like what the difference was, what my opinion was of certain things. And that was really refreshing because for anybody listening, all of the physicians that I have been taught by thus far have all had a very positive outlook on chiropractic. Sure. Like we’ve already discussed, they don’t like the misinformation, but in general, they’ve all been very respectful, which I really appreciated it for one, that’s awesome.

 

00;41;04;19 – 00;41;34;03

Richard Schoonmaker

But even on the first day of learning for in medical school, now in the, lab, the professor said, hey, listen, a lot of students are a little hesitant to do this at first. That’s okay. It’s understandable, but understand it really is just an option. You don’t have to be set on just doing this. There are certain people and certain conditions that they that this may work better for, but there are many other treatment options that you have that probably do the same thing.

 

00;41;34;05 – 00;42;01;01

Richard Schoonmaker

Yeah. And if you’d rather use that other thing, use that other thing. The reason we use Hvac, LA is if it is appropriate, it and done in a safe manner. But if either of those or and if you have, consent from the patient. But if you’re missing any of those three components, if it’s not appropriate, for whatever the patient is concerned of or complaining of, if you don’t have consent, if it’s not safe, you’re not doing it.

 

00;42;01;03 – 00;42;25;04

Richard Schoonmaker

But we can obviously apply that to any treatment. But it’s, I think more than anything in chiropractic school, it was unfortunately kind of put on a pedestal to be seen in this, like, magnanimous, treatment that can correct and, treat all of these different conditions that you don’t really even learn about. Whereas in, in medical school now, it was just kind of said, this is a treatment option.

 

00;42;25;04 – 00;42;46;09

Richard Schoonmaker

You have to use it or don’t not really a big deal. And like you can see how different that is. It’s like, yeah, that’s right. Exactly. And Dr. School it was like yeah if you want to use it. If not like you you got to get tested on it. But like after that, it’s kind of up to you and the patient to choose whether or not you use it.

 

00;42;46;12 – 00;43;09;22

Dr. Mona

Well, here’s why I like to build up D.O. school and osteopathic doctors. Is that literally that example of what that teacher told you on that first day of my lab is why I love osteopathic medicine, and that we are talking about tools in the holistic human experience. Right. So it’s not always going to be the answer. And you also mentioned that, you know, that if you do feel a and all of a sudden sinuses are draining, could it be that they felt relaxed at that moment?

 

00;43;09;22 – 00;43;29;21

Dr. Mona

Could it feel that they, you know, maybe they felt secure in maybe the timing, like I’ve done acupuncture, I’ve done chiropractic care, I’ve done it all. And I’m a medical professional and I still continue to get acupuncture. And I always say I’m like, man, this really helped. Is it the acupuncture or is it the fact that for an hour I was laying still on a bed with no cell phone, no children yelling at me?

 

00;43;29;26 – 00;44;03;24

Dr. Mona

And that relaxation relaxed my sinuses on combination with the acupuncture. And so I love that we’re talking about that because that is, to me, the true holistic doctor. Right? And I, I say this all the time that I do believe that as you go through your training, you’re going to really feel that sort of holistic feel of like, hey, we are looking at a disease process, not as like, how am I going to treat it with pharma, but I want to know if I have tools in my toolbelt to maybe do some sign people watching, maybe do some sinus pressure to release the sinuses or some of Flora’s here, or maybe I do some kneading

 

00;44;03;24 – 00;44;21;20

Dr. Mona

and stretching of the cortical is versus, you know, saying that, oh, it’s nothing. It’s going to get better. Because like you said earlier, it is something, right? It’s not nothing to these families into. Exactly. And I and I love that you brought that up and that we could, you know, tie that in because it is about knowing the scope of practice we have.

 

00;44;21;20 – 00;44;40;18

Dr. Mona

It is about knowing when we have limitations. And I it really bothers me when I see anyone, not just chiropractors, but even within pediatrics, people who just think they know everything and put things on a pedestal. And like you said, putting each family on a pedestal when it’s not everyone can be a candidate, nor does everyone want that.

 

00;44;40;18 – 00;44;49;19

Dr. Mona

Maybe they want something low intervention. Maybe they just want to have that comfort conversation with you because they trust you. And that, I think, is what this is all about, you know?

 

00;44;49;21 – 00;44;56;17

Richard Schoonmaker

Yeah, it’s, it makes me think back to I used to get a lot of criticism on social media because I would get called out by other chiropractors.

 

00;44;56;17 – 00;44;57;14

Dr. Mona

Because of, I’m sure you do.

 

00;44;57;19 – 00;45;15;27

Richard Schoonmaker

Was calling out chiropractors. And I would answer, like, listen, I totally understand where you’re coming from. I do call out a lot of chiropractors because one, I was a chiropractor and I know about chiropractic care. But in the same breath, it’s, it’s like I also would call out other types of providers who I remember. I can think of the video right off the top of my head.

 

00;45;15;27 – 00;45;32;25

Richard Schoonmaker

It was a neurosurgeon who’s talking about trying to educate people. You need to have the most upright posture. Your feet need to be directly underneath you, toes pointed straight, yada, yada, yada. And to make sure you don’t have like low back pain, you don’t need to have back surgery. And I was like, what are you talking about? That’s not how this works.

 

00;45;32;25 – 00;46;00;06

Richard Schoonmaker

I said, yeah, I said it professionally, but it was kind of one of those like, well, you can’t say this to the general population. They don’t know any better and you’re just going to scare them. So the whole nocebo effect, instead of having a positive influence, you end up having the reverse when you say or do something. But it’s because like, no matter what, the goal is to treat the patient in the most effective and effective in terms of their symptoms improving, but also cost effective manner, the most effective way possible.

 

00;46;00;09 – 00;46;21;21

Richard Schoonmaker

And we want you to or by doing so, that can be all sorts of things. It can be using pharmaceuticals, it can be through surgery, but it can also just be through therapeutic touch. Just how sitting down with somebody, I mean, for example, talk therapy. No manual therapy whatsoever, no actual invasive intervention, but talk therapy and how beneficial it is.

 

00;46;21;21 – 00;46;48;02

Richard Schoonmaker

You just talk to somebody about their problems and listen to them for the first time, and have them be able to voice what they’re feeling is immensely beneficial and therapeutic for them, just as much as if you have somebody who has chronic neck pain and they’re tired of taking ibuprofen and tired of taking time out and tired of getting Botox injections, one talk about them and one or talk to them about their problems.

 

00;46;48;07 – 00;47;19;16

Richard Schoonmaker

And what if a manual therapy, just doing what a lot of people have heard of, trigger point therapy or acupuncture, these relatively noninvasive, treatments that have few side effects outside of soreness. Why can’t we do that? Why shouldn’t we, when there is evidence to support it? Sure. It’s not, the end all be all. But if these people have already exhausted all other options, I mean, that’s this is like another segue into why some people may choose to go to a chiropractor versus see their family physician.

 

00;47;19;18 – 00;47;39;13

Richard Schoonmaker

What if they have exhausted all these other options and they go to the chiropractor? Their chiropractor sits there and listens to them and gives them a manual therapy and maybe a stretch or two that they can use at home so they don’t have to rely on taking an over-the-counter or a prescription. They can do something at home that makes their problem go away just like that.

 

00;47;39;15 – 00;47;51;21

Richard Schoonmaker

Why wouldn’t we allow those people to do that? I think that’s in my opinion, that is evidence based care to me? And that’s a big reason why people choose to do those things to.

 

00;47;51;24 – 00;48;00;02

Dr. Mona

Now let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsors who support helps us keep bringing you this show.

 

00;48;00;05 – 00;48;25;14

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And it goes down to listening. And, you know, obviously people are going to go to the clinician that is most available face to face work. You know, being able to be there with them. And you said, I, I think you’ve heard me say this before on my social and podcast, but like, I’m worried that modern medicine pushes people away, given the fact that the system itself is designed to not allow as much time as we could have with parents, patients and parents and, you know, all of that.

 

00;48;25;14 – 00;48;42;21

Dr. Mona

So where are they left to go? Right. They’re going to be pushed into the hands of other clinicians. And if we’re not careful, it’s going to push them into misinformation. And so if we can do a better job of that as Dio’s right, because we have that holistic knowledge. But time is always the the negative on our side.

 

00;48;42;21 – 00;49;07;10

Dr. Mona

Right. You know, visit times by corporate medicine or by insurance companies. But we we owe this to our patients. And so, you know, my final question, you know, for you being, having gone through chiropractor school and practicing and now being in osteopathic medical school, how do you envision sort of this balance? Like what is your kind of dream world where chiropractors and doctors can live in a symbiotic relationship?

 

00;49;07;10 – 00;49;10;17

Dr. Mona

Like, what would you wish for the world and community?

 

00;49;10;20 – 00;49;52;13

Richard Schoonmaker

I think first, everybody has to the harsh way to say to stay in your lane, but to practice within your scope of practice. I one thing I would always tell chiropractors who start kind of like blurring the lines, toeing the line, it’s I, I, I can’t emphasize this enough how important it is to have chiropractors that work in evidence based care, because within that evidence based care, that scope of practice is helping people in chronic pain and how unbelievably difficult it is to treat chronic pain, and how the scope the chiropractors have can actually benefit people in chronic pain, or just pain in general, without needing to turn to pharmaceuticals or surgery or anything

 

00;49;52;13 – 00;50;13;24

Richard Schoonmaker

along those lines. That is really beneficial, and I would hope that moving forward, that chiropractors are able to work and function, and they kind of already are chiropractors work at VA hospitals and work in other hospitals. They work just like I did with other physicians, being able to work side by side and provide all of these different treatments within the scope of practice.

 

00;50;13;24 – 00;50;41;04

Richard Schoonmaker

Abiding by evidence based guidelines is will only serve to benefit the patients more than anybody. It will limit harm and it will maximize treatment benefit. How we get there? I don’t know. Yeah, I think we’re trying especially a lot of the physicians and even chiropractors on social media, they’re trying hard to streamline that. We have a long way to go.

 

00;50;41;07 – 00;51;12;02

Richard Schoonmaker

But I would just hope that eventually communication is able to be cleared up. I think social media doesn’t do it, unfortunately. Yeah. You had mentioned before, there’s a lot of negativity, and I hope one day that can stop. But I think that starts with just holding each other. Both within the profession and maybe cross or like between professions, holding each other accountable for the words we say, the treatments we provide, information that we spread, I think is really important.

 

00;51;12;05 – 00;51;17;20

Richard Schoonmaker

But hopefully in the future we’re able to kind of achieve a harmony through that, I think.

 

00;51;17;22 – 00;51;46;27

Dr. Mona

I love that, and I do have an actual other second question is, if a family does have a child and they are looking for a chiropractor because maybe they want that extra layer of another opinion on maybe how to help with colic or reflux or knowing what they know and knowing what you just said about, you know, maybe there’s not a lot of evidence, but maybe they can have some tools, you know, how can they find like the sort of best chiropractor in their area that is an expert in that area and maybe not giving them misinformation around that?

 

00;51;46;27 – 00;52;12;10

Richard Schoonmaker

So yeah, I wish yeah, I wish there was some like database that I could send people to. A lot of the, a lot of ways that people access or even just find a chiropractor is word of mouth people that they know who have seen them. But I’m sure that that also works in medicine too, though. Yeah. However, I would say you do maybe to a point might have to shop around a little bit in the sense like if you go to a chiropractor, they start talking about a few things.

 

00;52;12;10 – 00;52;33;22

Richard Schoonmaker

You’re like, I feel like this is something that I should be talking to my family physician about. Not quite sure why we’re talking about that here. Maybe just be hesitant. Now, I think more than anything, you’re for when you go to a chiropractor, especially for pediatrics, to somebody who’s willing to sit down for an extended period of time.

 

00;52;33;24 – 00;52;57;01

Richard Schoonmaker

If they’re sitting with you for five minutes or less, and the first thing they want to do is, you know, scan your child with some weird thermometer device with a bunch of blinking lights, and it has this nice fancy print out, or it comes up on the computer screen. You’re like, wow, okay, be hesitant of those things again, I’m pretty sure, as mentioned earlier, medicine would be using those things if they were actually right.

 

00;52;57;05 – 00;52;57;20

Richard Schoonmaker

True.

 

00;52;57;24 – 00;53;00;18

Dr. Mona

We would be first to be using those, but they’re not true.

 

00;53;00;18 – 00;53;34;05

Richard Schoonmaker

Right? Exactly, exactly. If you start hearing over generalizations of things, if more so than anything, if it sounds too good to be true, there’s a good chance it ends. With that said, if a chiropractor sits down with you for an extended period of time, if they hear all of your problems and they’re really just trying to help you navigate those things, and they are willing to openly work with other providers that you’re seeing, I think that is a, a good a better sign more than anything.

 

00;53;34;08 – 00;53;51;06

Dr. Mona

I actually have a go to in my area. Right. Because I like I said, my I had seen one for myself who isn’t comfortable with pediatrics. And she was very adamant. And I appreciate that she’s not going to be like, hey, yeah, send me your babies. Right. And so then I do have one that is very comfortable. I do not know about the diplomat thing, so I have to ask.

 

00;53;51;06 – 00;54;16;11

Dr. Mona

But he’s great and he knows his limitations, I know mine and we live in this symbiotic relationship like we talked about, right? We know each other’s what each other can do. He knows that, hey, if this is something that’s needed, I’m going to send this baby back to Doctor Mona. And I really appreciate that. And so my advice is like, doctor, you know, like we talked about is that if you feel like it’s too good, it probably is.

 

00;54;16;11 – 00;54;33;11

Dr. Mona

But also bring that information back to your general pediatrician or family medicine doctor, like if they’re going to do a treatment on you, like you like a specialist would recommend, any time I send my patients to a specialist, I always say, hey, let me know what they tell you. Like I usually get a referral form, but sometimes I don’t.

 

00;54;33;11 – 00;54;52;11

Dr. Mona

I say, hey, can you just give me a call and just leave a message on what they’re recommending? Same thing. If I’m sending to a chiropractor, I want to know what they’re saying so that we as a team, because the pediatrician, the family medicine doctor is the medical home. What I mean by that is we should be the ones to have that relationship with you, to look at everything holistically and say, you know what?

 

00;54;52;11 – 00;55;12;28

Dr. Mona

This is, right? Or this is not. But we need to know what they’re saying, to say, yeah, that seems low risk. Why don’t you go ahead and do that? I don’t see any problem with that. Or actually that sounds really risky. Like, I don’t think I want that person coming near. You like to do that, right? And so that is what I’m asking for, that we would have that sort of proportionality to say, hey, here’s what I’m recommending.

 

00;55;12;28 – 00;55;30;22

Dr. Mona

The patient and family talking to their pediatrician about that so that it is true holistic care if that’s what we want. And so I really appreciate you coming on to talk about all this, because, you know, being able to just hear about your lens from both sides, I think is very rare. And I hope our listeners got that amazing perspective.

 

00;55;30;22 – 00;55;48;23

Dr. Mona

And I’m sure I’ll have you on in like another five years once you’ve gone through medical school training, whether you decide to use them or not. Because side note, everybody, just because you go through D.O. school doesn’t mean that every dog is licensed to do all. After residency, you have to get certifications to keep your, skills fresh.

 

00;55;48;23 – 00;56;04;21

Dr. Mona

So I do not have that certification. Hence to, I do not do them in my office. But I’ve always thought about getting that back because I think about how amazing of a tool it was. But it is hours and hours of certification. But as a heads up, you can also find a dog that has, certifications.

 

00;56;04;21 – 00;56;12;20

Dr. Mona

If you are looking for something, you know, for physical manipulation on top of medical management. Thank you so much for being here today.

 

00;56;12;22 – 00;56;13;20

Richard Schoonmaker

I appreciate it. Thank you. Doctor.

 

00;56;13;20 – 00;56;20;22

Dr. Mona

Mona, where can everyone. Yeah, where can everyone go to stay connected? I know you’re very busy, so don’t expect a lot of posts from him. Okay, guys.

 

00;56;20;25 – 00;56;32;09

Richard Schoonmaker

So I will say my Instagram has been quite, quiet the last couple of weeks. I think it’s, rich as underscore MS2 it may be ohms too. I can’t remember if I changed.

 

00;56;32;09 – 00;56;38;19

Dr. Mona

It is MS2 I looked it up for our talk and I’m going to say it’s funny how I know more than you, but you’re a medical student, so I give you a pass.

 

00;56;38;22 – 00;56;55;20

Richard Schoonmaker

I will say, I will say I have recently started getting more into TikTok just because it’s a little bit more long form content. So more educational. So the exact same username. I’m pretty common. I think my TikTok 1st May actually be rich s underscore oh, Mr..

 

00;56;55;24 – 00;56;56;08

Dr. Mona

Perfect.

 

00;56;56;10 – 00;57;11;20

Richard Schoonmaker

I think I just got to change Instagram one, but if people want to say connected, that’s how you find me. If you message me, I message back. I read everything myself. And it is me responding to you. So if anybody ever has any questions at all, please feel free to reach out to me.

 

00;57;11;23 – 00;57;27;10

Dr. Mona

Yeah, like I said, I found him when he was active doing content and then he took a long break. So please don’t take his long break as him not wanting to do it. Medical school is busy everybody, but I will find the most recent handle name. Don’t worry, I’ll do that for you. You know that I understand what’s going on.

 

00;57;27;10 – 00;57;43;28

Dr. Mona

So, I don’t do this for all my guests, but I do it for my medical students because I know I’ve been there. Appreciate it, but I will look at your handle, add that to our show notes and everyone tuning in. If you love this conversation, give it a thumbs up sign. Make sure you subscribe to the channel and share this on your social media.

 

00;57;43;28 – 00;57;59;19

Dr. Mona

Say hey everyone, watch this video so you know, follow Richard, follow Doctor Mona so that we can continue to hopefully create this world where we all can just give good health care to everybody and stay within our boundaries of what we know. So thank you, Richard, for joining me today.

 

00;57;59;21 – 00;58;03;15

Richard Schoonmaker

Appreciate it. Thank you.

 

00;58;03;17 – 00;58;28;11

Dr. Mona

What I hope you take away from this episode is this good chiropractic care can help, especially when it stays within its scope and focuses on what it’s trained for. The problem isn’t chiropractic care itself, it’s the misinformation that’s louder than the truth. Social media loves a flashy neck crack or a miracle cure, but what actually helps families are professionals who know their limits, work alongside physicians, and focus on evidence.

 

00;58;28;11 – 00;58;52;08

Dr. Mona

If you’re a parent, the goal isn’t to fear chiropractors, it’s to find the right kind of care rooted in safety, collaboration, and respect for science. I oftentimes see patients in my office and we discuss chiropractic care, and one of the most beautiful experiences is knowing that I can send my patients to chiropractors that I trust to follow the evidence they do have and stay within their scope of expertise.

 

00;58;52;10 – 00;59;13;26

Dr. Mona

A huge thank you to Richard for his honesty and insight. His story shows that curiosity and humility and medicine go a long way, and that calling out misinformation isn’t disloyal. It’s necessary. If this conversation helped you think differently. Subscribe, download and share the episode. That’s how the show continues to grow and how I can keep bringing you these honest, nuanced conversations.

 

00;59;13;29 – 00;59;30;28

Dr. Mona

And if you share it on social, make sure to tag at PedsDocTalk and at the PedsDocTalk podcast and let me know your biggest takeaway, because when we talk about these things out loud, we make space for better care for our kids and for ourselves. I’ll catch you all next time on the next episode of the show.