Despite my best efforts I finally ended up back working in a personal-injury chiropractic office in Florida for at least the first quarter of 2012. I think the last 4 months being out of the profession have been the most enjoyable times for me since college graduation in 1998.
I can't believe I sacrificed 4 years of my life to go to college to do this. I think it was easily the most hare-brained idea I've ever had, a horrible mistake-due to the student loan debt incurred.
It's not chiropractic itself that's a bad profession. It's just that the profession has whored itself out to the insurance companies and become just like all the others in the health-care field. It demeans the profession and makes me look like a joke.
The personal-injury racket is basically just an extension of the welfare system, disguised as healthcare. Unfortunately, as is often the case, all the money seems to be in the sleaziest part of the game. Regardless, I think they will change the law soon anyway, due to the blatant fraud going on-staged accidents and the like. I figured out this was a racket about 4 years ago when I worked for a clinic in Orlando, and it was owned by a bunch of Russians who weren't even doctors, so it was the "Russian Mob" maybe, I can't say for sure. It was unusual.
These "patients" don't even care about their health. They seem to care mostly about remaining grossly overweight and never exercising, obtaining and getting addicted to a variety of prescription drugs, getting all their hips and knees surgically replaced with titanium joints and never paying a dime out-of pocket for any of it.
It hasn't helped that the economy is still in the doldrums with no spark whatsoever-this has been going on since about mid-2008. Did our parents go through this? I don't think so. When they wanted to do something, they just did it. The opportunity was there if they wanted to work hard. It didn't take that long either. Now it seems like it takes most of a lifetime to save up $10,000, which is what I will need to take another swipe at doing something else.
Florida's never been a particularly good fit for me. I guess there's worse places I could have been called to. I'm more of a Colorado guy. I think my best place I ever lived was the Bay area around San Francisco. At least Okeechobee's got character. It's the "Old Florida". They even have a parade and a few fair's on a regular basis, like "small town America". In fact, I think it's my favorite place I've lived in Florida in the past decade.
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| My office in Okeechobee, FL |
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| At least they have a primo jogging/bike trail around Lake Okeechobee |
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There comes a time when you need a change in life and I was ready to change careers after my last chiropractic position in Tallahassee ended in August. Mentally I quit about 5 years ago, but the economy forces me to keep going.
It's not that it's difficult, it's just extremely boring. The problem is, the American dream is dead, or at least on hold until they can get rid of the current administration. Even then, I think it will take our country years to recover. Plus, it's not every day you get a job offer out of the blue at my age, especially in this shit-economy, so here I am again, just like Groundhog Day. Regardless,
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