Culminating Blog Reflection: Working in a Chiropractor's office

Upon shadowing my mentor Dr. Patrick Cheng, my critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity skills were tested. I used my critical thinking on the observations I made of the patients. Dr. Cheng would ask me what I observed and would make me compare his patients before and after a back adjustment. He had me stationed at the front desk of his office and this gave me the chance to be social with his waiting patients. Dr.Cheng told me to get to know his patients because social skills are important on his career field. Becoming social with strangers is difficult for me because I'am shy around them, but if I get to know them better I feel more comfortable being around them. He would sometimes let me watch him do a live back adjustment and after he would ask if I had any questions which always had me thinking.

Although the majority of time I worked at Dr. Cheng's office was spent filling papers, I gained knowledge about being a Chiropractor after watching his demonstrations. My social skills also improved because earlier working at the office, I would smile at the patient but overtime I started to have small talk with the patients. I also probably gained finger strength by using the manual staple remover almost everyday I worked there. I learned that their is an administration side to chiropractic care and it is very boring. Dr. Cheng has to handle a lot of records and he keeps them in a back room. I had to get them prepared to get scanned so the files are in his computer. Before I did my physical project, I did not know this about being a chiropractor. I always thought it was only massaging people. I definitely learned more about this profession after completing the physical project.

 I had some challenges that I had to overcome while working with my mentor. I was good with meeting up with Dr. Cheng because he and I planned the schedule of when to meet up with him before I started my hours. I would say that the hardest thing to do was meeting my mentor on Saturdays because that is his busy day and Dr. Cheng wants me to see what goes on during a busy day. Luckily, I got to see what his busy days were like since I picked the day that Dr. Cheng had a lot of patients. Transportation was a slight problem because I would walk from school to my house then go to my mentor, but it wasn't a big problem because his office was only about 3 blocks away from my house. I had trouble being social because talking to strangers was not my skill. Overall I had fun and I learned a lot while working with Dr. Cheng. I'am actually considering this as a career after college.