Hello everyone, I’m back!! It is the start of my fourth trimester at the NUHS – Florida campus. I am eager to get back into a routine with classes and activities here, but I will certainly miss the free time I had over break. I spent the majority of my break visiting my family in Albuquerque – eating ALL of the local green chile I could before coming back to Florida. Before I went home, however, I went to Orlando with some classmates to attend the Florida Chiropractic Association’s (FCA) annual conference.

The FCA conference is one of the largest conventions in the U.S. and it is completely FREE to student members of the FCA (free membership). Plus, with it being only two hours away from us, it is a very easy trip to make to network, attend lectures, and, of course, collect all sorts of free samples of products we will be exposed to over the course of our schooling and practice.

Two of my classmates and I rented an Air B&B and drove out to spend three of the four days at the conference. We met so many people I can hardly keep track of the business cards — and even more students — mostly from Palmer-Florida. It was interesting to talk with students from another program and see that even though our schools have different curriculum and approaches to chiropractic education, we are all still peers, and may one day be working along side each other in practice.

I chose to attend several seminars by Dr. Mark Charrette that focused on his approach to lower extremity adjusting technique. Now, I haven’t quite reached the point in my curriculum where I am able to perform extremity adjustments (next trimester – yay!) so many of the skills I was shown I am not yet able to apply in my practices until I reach the applied courses. That being said, it was an awesome experience learning additional adjustments and getting a bit of a head start on next trimester. I cannot wait to see how some of Dr. Charrette’s techniques may be worked into my own.

When not in networking or in seminars the convention hosts many, many vendors that use the time to market their services, tables, tech, creams, pillows, tape, or anything else you might find in a chiropractic office. Just by visiting with the vendors you learn a lot about products available to patients now and it can even give you an idea of what services you may want to provide in your practice. Plus, they love to give students free samples and I made out with a good 20 pounds of everything from shirts to socks, pens and pins, and plenty of therapeutic creams, tapes and vitamins. I am slowly looking into each product and deciding which I am going to try for myself over the coming weeks.

One of my favorite parts of the weekend at FCA was the company. We had many NUHS students attending and we all had a chance to enjoy the first days of our breaks and hang out around Orlando. I also had two of my good friends from my undergraduate program who were in attendance whom I haven’t seen in over a year! They go to Palmer, so it was nice to see them and catch up.

Finally, for you avid blog followers out there, I bumped into a good friend you might also know! Dr. Kotwicki just moved out to Eatontown, NJ to begin his work as a chiropractor for Soul Focus, a group that incorporates several modalities of health care and physical fitness all under one roof. He is eager to begin his next chapter and I am very excited to have him as a friend and contact in the field. Hopefully I will be bumping into him at conferences again soon!

If you have any questions, please email me at [email protected].