Well-Adjusted: Insights from Suzanne Lady, Faculty, College of Chiropractic

Want to know what the alumnus and faculty experience in the Doctor of Chiropractic program is actually like? Dr. Lady brings both sides to this interview, offering why she believes UWS is a great fit for future chiropractic students seeking to truly be evidence-based practitioners. As one of the program's finest, she represents a long line of faculty stretching back nearly 123 years!

To learn more about UWS, visit us at https://www.uws.edu.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Chiropractors trained at Western States are exemplary diagnosticians, and they will be trained to triage things that are in our wheelhouse, our scope that we would treat, and things that need to be referred out.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Greetings, everyone, welcome to the University of Western States podcast. Located in Portland, Oregon, and online, University of Western States offers a world-class integrated healthcare education focusing on the whole person and provides an evidence-informed approach to health and wellness. For more information about UWS, visit us at www.us.edu. My name is Nathan Long, president of the university. Today I have the privilege and honor of being joined by the distinguished, fabulous, amazing, incredible Dr. Suzanne Lady. And I say all that because it's true. Members across our community, alumni, students, faculty, colleagues, staff, just hold her in such high regard for her kindness, her compassion, her commitment, her rigor to chiropractic education and the pursuit of helping students succeed upon graduation. She's now a full professor. I had an associate before. I think this is very exciting. We have a full professor on the pod, and she has been in the College of Chiropractic. She's also a vaunted alumnus of the University of Western States. Dr. Lady, it is so good to have you here. Welcome to the podcast. So let's get right to it. So tell us a little bit about your background. How did you get into the profession? What drew you to the University of Western States? Maybe talk about a few pivotal moments along the way.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Sure. And I just want to say, wow, thank you for that introduction. I am blushing. I can feel it. That's a lot to live up to. I'm amazed that you think that about me. Thank you very much. So I did not have a linear trip to becoming a chiropractor. It was very, it was a windy road. My mom, who grew up in Texas, the panhandle of Texas in the 50s, she went to high school with a kid that was the daughter of a chiropractor. And back then it wasn't a well-known thing to do, is to visit your chiropractor. And my grandmother was pretty instrumental in bringing the whole family to see a chiropractor. So it was nothing unusual for me to have chiropractic care. So I started receiving chiropractic treatments when I was a baby into childhood. Oh wow. And then in yeah, so I have had a long experience with it. And then in high school, I took a career class. And we won one of the rotations, I was assigned to work at Luke Air Force Base at the physical therapy clinic. And so I did that, and I thought, oh, this is it. I love this. I like working with my hands. I'm physical. I was an athlete my entire life. This makes sense. So then in college, I went to the University of Arizona on a softball scholarship and was an athlete there. And during that time, I saw a sports psychologist. And that was my aha moment. I thought, this is what I really want to do. So I was like any other kid trying to figure it all out. Thought it was actually landed on sports psychology, but at the time, the University of Arizona did not have their program up and running yet, like it is today. And so I pivoted to a tri-major of psychological psychology, sociology, and exercise science. And that's what I graduated from U of A with. And then a teammate, a travel ball teammate, in the summer asked, Why don't you become a chiropractor? And I thought, why don't I become a chiropractor? That's a really good idea. Why haven't I thought of that? And so I moved to California after school and worked just to make sure I wanted to do that. I worked for a couple of chiropractors, really prestigious chiropractors in Northern California, for three whole years. And during that process, I became a massage therapist. And I thought, yeah, this is it. This is it. I can embody, I can incorporate all the things that I'm comfortable with in this one profession. And to be quite honest, I had all intentions of attending Life West, dare I say that, before I knew better. I know, right? I was because I lived in Northern California at the time. I thought that's just an easy commute for me, and it would just, it would be easy. So at the time I had a friend doing fellowship at OHSU, and she suggested before you commit totally, why don't you come up to Portland and check out Western States Chiropractic College, which she knew at the time had a very good reputation. So I did, and I'm glad I did, because it resonated, Western states resonated with more of my own philosophy about what chiropractors did and what they should be doing. And I graduated from Western States, started my practice, was in practice for almost 20 years, and then halfway through that started to have some physical issues, uh, body, physical body issues. And I think stemming from all of my athletic years since I was a kid, doing every sport I could do. And then I had a series, so I started to think about my longevity in that aspect. What am I going to do if I can't do chiropractic? And a serendipitous experience for me happened. Bev, Dr. Bev Harger reached out and she said, You're never going to believe this. There is an opening in the clinical education department. I think you'd be perfect. And it was working with Dr. Ron LeFay and teaching Clint Faye's labs. And I applied, and I've been here since 2012. So I've been here 13 years as of July. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

That's incredible. So let's rewind a bit on that story because you brought out some real all of it very impressive. And I was pleased to hear that this has been a lifelong journey for you, the chiropractic connection on that side of things. You mentioned when you came to University of Western States or Western States Chiropractic College at the time that the philosophy resonated with you as to what chiropractors did and should be doing out there. What does that actually translate to for our audience here? What did that mean? What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Sure. So as we teach it here, chiropractic is more than just the adjustment. And everyone knows chiropractors to crack backs. I'll just use that in quotes because people are familiar with that. So the adjustment is what people know us to be good at, which we are, but we do more than that. So we use nutrition and exercise and rehab, and we really focus on a biopsychosocial approach to managing pain, incorporating mind-body medicine types of skills into that the treatment. So we can allow patients to take control of their own life. And that was that that has been in play at Western States for as long as I have been familiar with the institution. So I can give you an example of what that might look like. You have an ankle sprain. I don't know if you've ever sprained your ankle. Maybe it swells, it gets swollen, you can't walk on it, you hobble around for a few weeks, you rest and ice and elevate, and you do all the things that you're supposed to do. And the body's biopsychosocial, biological will heal itself. So you've got tissue damage, we expect it to heal. That's the natural, normal process. But there are some people that don't follow suit. They have continued pain past the time where we think that tissue should have been healed. So we have to in those patients consider the psychosocial aspects. Maybe that individual lost their job. Maybe they have some underlying depression or anxiety that's helping continue that pain process. So that was what is so intriguing about our not our method, but the way Western states approaches treatment of patients. They incorporate the whole person.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Okay, so we're gonna have a final wrap-up question at the end about this, but I want to dig into that whole person piece because we've had three, you're now the third interview that we've had along this way. And I think you've really captured beautifully the whole person health mindset that chiropractors bring to this. And I I would, you know, I'd it's easy for us to get into the what is it, the straight mixer debate about what that all means. We're not gonna go, I won't go there. You can't. You certainly can go there if you want.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

I won't either.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

But I think like when it one of the draws for Western states was this approach to whole person health. And the way you articulated that is so really spot on. Could you maybe walk us through as a clinician when you were treating patients and when you're mentoring students, what does that consult look like or that engagement with the individual look like?

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Oh, that I'm so glad that you asked that. I do have an example that I've thought through as I was preparing my notes for this. 40-year-old female patient comes in. She has low back pain. She's had for years and years. It started years prior because she had some accident, an injury to her back. And for years, she saw medical providers that did a lot of scans, a lot of x-rays, a lot of MRIs, and they pretty much told her that her back was degenerated, that she should be careful when she lifted anything, that she should stop gardening. And I should mention that this patient was a master gardener. It was the love of her life is to garden. So she stopped. And what this did for this patient was it it conveyed the message to her that her back was fragile and that needed to be protected. And so this person became more and more fearful, more hyper-vigilant when any sign of pain started for her. Sure. She became fear avoidant to do all of the things that would keep a person healthy and happy and socially engaged. And so what that did is it created when she did have flare-ups, she would be alarmed by it that she would tighten up, which further created more immobility, which further created more of a pain cycle, and that perpetuated itself. So our role as chiropractic physicians is to intervene in that process. We want to not scare the patient by telling them things like you've got bad things, age-related, normal things going on with your spine. We want to encourage patients that they can take control of their own health, they can become active through exercise and diet and proper nutrition and mind-body skills. And that is really how that whole person practitioner, whole person health care provider has a role in whole health. I'm not saying that chiropractors treat everything in the whole body. That would be almost impossible. I don't know of a provider that actually does do that. But chiropractors trained at Western States are they are exemplary diagnosticians and they will be trained to triage things that are in our wheelhouse, our scope that we would treat, and things that need to be referred out. And we're quite good at that. We're quite good at referring patients to the correct practitioner to give them the care that they actually need.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Is that it? Wow. Okay. Seriously, I'm inspired.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

And then some. Yes, that was terrific. I it was very inspiring. So let's talk a minute then about University of Western States chiropractic program. We'll dwell on this for just a little bit. And I think there's been a over the last 40, 50 years, I wouldn't call it an explosion, but a cropping out of a variety of different institutions that have chiropractic programs that are centered in that. And when I was doing a lot of deep diving into Western states before coming here, it struck me we're the second oldest chiropractic program in the United States. We've got a lot of cachet. From your perspective, what makes the University of Western States truly distinctive amongst our other 20 peer institutions? And you've already talked about the tie-in to whole person health, but what why would a student want to choose us and actually come and locate here in Portland, Oregon, of all places?

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Yeah, that's a great question. So I think that the reason I chose Western states years ago would be the same reason that I think students should choose it now. And that is that we have always been rooted in the evidence of some sort. And we've gotten a lot better at that and a lot more explicit at looking at the evidence and teaching to an evidence-based or an evidence-informed, whatever word you want to use. I'm okay with both. Type of philosophy in chiropractic. And so I think that is a very that makes Western States a very viable institution. Not to speak, not to forget about the faculty that I get to work with every day. And I let me say, let me say some things about our faculty. I have been in team sports my whole life. And this is such a team experience that I'm having here in the last 13 years that I've been here. We support each other, we pick each other up, we cover for each other, we create opportunities for one another. And we are all in when it comes to becoming better educators. I think most of our faculty are trained in additional medical teacher training. I know that I myself and a lot of my colleagues went through ESME, the Essential Skills for Medical Educators through the IAMSE program. And we continue to do continuing education around teaching and learning. And we're just willing as a collective to become better educators. And we know that the students come first. We know that it's all about the student experience. So you can't find a better faculty body that is more supportive and willing to help students that are struggling, that are needing some additional time or additional help. So I'm so proud to be a part of this faculty experience. And let me just say, Portland is cool. It's really cool. It is. Despite its issues that it's had recently, it's still a really cool place and it's a safe place. And so I just want to throw that out there.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Indeed, indeed. Yeah, and yes, it does rain a lot, but for those of you who like the seasons, it's fabulous. Yes. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

I came from Arizona, which is not a nice place in the summer. And so I was happy to stay. It's probably why I stayed.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

It's true. It's so beautiful. There's so much to do within a short perimeter here in Portland. It's the natural beauty. Oh my gosh, it's just incredible. Yeah. Yeah. And I've noticed we were just talking the other day about our student demographic, and someone was saying that we were talking about the nutritional options available in the campus store. And they said, we we've been debating the healthier options. The students just don't necessarily buy those, but they get a lot of chips. And we think we should probably provide more healthier options. I said, I think those students are probably healthier than 90% of us right now. Just that, yeah. So yeah. Give them their chips or at least the option. That's right. Living a little isn't a bad thing.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Absolutely. I'm a chip a holic, if truth be known. That's my weakness.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Okay. All right. So bribes come in lays and ruffles. Okay, I got it.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Kettle chips. I have to brand it out here.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Those are so good. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. I'm going to go to the store this afternoon. That's my payment. Yeah. Or that's your payment for doing this today.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

So I really appreciate you framing it in that way. And the faculty here, I was I mentioned the other day on another interview, that was one of the fundamental reasons why I chose UWS was the esprit de corps amongst the faculty. And to see it's not, I think at universities that there's an inward-facing mindset amongst many faculty. But here, what was so powerful to me was the both the inward and outward ways in which you all relate and that the student success is really centered in what you do. And that's not common, at least in my time in higher ed. I love all the faculty I've worked with over my career, but this is a very special, unique place. So as you think about your role as a faculty member and your peers, and we think about the students that are like, huh, chiropractic education. I hear it's hard. What does that look like for a student and how can they be most successful during their three years that they're studying at Western States?

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Yeah, that that is a really important question because I think a couple of things. So one, you have to be ready to enter a program like this. It is rigorous for a reason. It's doable, but it's rigorous and you want it to be rigorous. Otherwise, everyone would do it. And maybe that's not a good fit for everybody. And so you want to make sure that you're at a place in your life that you can dedicate time and you have to be disciplined and you have to be have this be your focus. This is a hard program. If you have other focuses outside of this program, that would be distracting. So that's the first thing. I would say setting yourself up for success would be also grappling with the not knowing, the ambiguity of things. I think a lot of times, and we're probably all victim to this at some point in our lives, and it's just more comfortable to have the answer, to have the known answer. It's right or wrong, it's black or white. But really, medicine across the board, chiropractic included, there are shades of gray. And where I see students really struggling emotionally, mentally, is when they haven't grappled with that. When they have when that struggle between not knowing and knowing that and that roller coaster that they go on, they've got to lean into that. And it's one of the things that will learning should be hard, it should not feel fun. It should, I is that weird to say, I know, but it shouldn't. When you're learning, it's a struggle. And when you're struggling, you're learning, and then you will eventually get out the other side with a huge body of knowledge and humility and knowing that even when you get out into practice, there is still some ambiguity.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Yeah. So getting really well comfortable with that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Yeah. Yeah. And I think so often, right? I know the mantra in grad school when I first got in there, it wasn't the mantra, it was we all thought we knew everything, right? Oh, we're in a doctoral program, we're going to be amazing. And I had this faculty member who is a lot like you in mindset who said to me, the more you know, the less you know, the more you think you know, the less you actually do know. And you have to come into any learning experience with that humility and that willingness to be wrong, right? And questioning your own motives and your own process, even, which I think you just captured that so well. It takes me back to 30 years ago. So I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

And yeah, yeah. And I just one more thing about that. I think that our faculty, that if we get back to the faculty for just this moment, faculty here embody that. I think that we're willing to show students that we don't know. And that's that is, I just had a student tell me that the other day when I was being vulnerable and I was saying, Yeah, I struggled too in this whole process. And I think that goes a long way to show students that we are not infallible, that we have we make mistakes, and that is just the part of the human experience that we're all going through, and they can relate to that. And so I think that is definitely something that can keep students going and keep them laser focused to accomplish their goals.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Amen to that. Amen. I'm John Doe or Jane Doe student. And I come in, I say, Dr. Lady, I'm so excited. I'm ready to do this. I'm about a year in and I'm like, oh my God, what am I gonna do when I graduate? I there what options do I have? And from your perspective, you've done a lot of different things in your career. So maybe could you walk us through what areas a doctor of chiropractic can practice in?

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Oh, yeah, that's great. There are many more areas that you can practice as a chiropractor from the moment that I graduated. So you can enter into clinical practice. You can be a primary spine specialist, you can specialize in sports medicine, or you can be a rehab specialist, or a you can go into the neurology field, you can work with pediatrics or pregnant. Patients, or you can actually just do pain management. So the clinical practice has many potential caveats to it that you could choose from. You could also go into a hospital setting like the VA or other hospital hospitals that actually provide chiropractic, which more and more are doing. That wasn't an option when I went through. I would have completely chosen the VA. Based on my experience I had at Luke Air Force Base, I thought that was a great experience. I probably would have done that had that been available to me. You can go into academia, you can teach like me and others. You can be administrators like you, and Dr. Kazer and Dr. Ewald, and all of the great people that we have here as administrators. You can go into specialty roles like Dr. Harder, she's a DAC bar, she's a radiologist, or you can go in and be an orthopedist or a neurologist or functional medicine specialist. So there are just many options for a chiropractor researcher. I didn't mention that. You can enter into the field of chiropractic research. So yeah, there are there are many avenues to getting your degree other than just the clinical practice part of it.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Got it, got it. So if I'm a student then who says in doing chiropractic research or academia, let's just say, should they practice for a while?

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Oh, that's a really good question. I would encourage it. I would encourage it. Not that you have to have it, but it certainly gives you confidence to then become a teacher and then become an educator because you can draw on your past experience with patients and really know what you're talking about. Yeah. You don't need it, but I think it's helpful.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Yeah, it's that practical experience to help you relate to your students and relate to the challenges they may have. I would agree with that 100%.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

So a couple more questions here before we conclude our interview today. And this is just really appreciate it. We're going to have you back. No doubt, no question. Two wrapped into one, or maybe three, if you will. And I probably should have added this at the beginning, but I think this kind of bundles with this. So if you could give the general audience, so people who aren't interested maybe in pursuing a chiropractic degree, but have wanted to dabble in maybe getting chiropractic care first. What is a chiropractor or what does chiropractic mean? And then secondly, there's all this stuff out there on social media and beyond about various biases and myths that impact chiropractic as a profession. How do these tie in and how would you respond to those in saying to someone you should really consider receiving chiropractic care?

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yeah. That is a great question. And it is a question that my friends ask me all the time. Who should I go see? Do you know anyone? And they're, yeah. So first of all, chiropractic is to use the hands to treat the body. And so chiropractors, as I alluded to in the very beginning, we do more than just that quintessential adjustment to the spine or extremities. And I think it probably begs a response to what is that actually doing? And so just not to get into the weeds are too detailed, but when someone is coming in and they have spine pain or extremity pain, and we do an adjustment, what we think we're doing is the theory goes that we are stimulating a different set of nerves that travel faster to the spinal cord up to the brain to actually help inhibit the pain that the person is experiencing. So that's how that adjustment we think might work. But that's not all we do. We incorporate from the get-go the biopsychosocial approach, which incorporates all three of those things. We might want to specialize in nutrition, we might want to specialize in exercise science or rehab or some type of sports sports medicine. And so essentially that's chiropractic. A good chiropractor is going to take a full history, they're going to do a physical exam, they're going to tell you what they think is going on for you and how they can help and how you are going to be a part of that. So we call that active care. So if you're looking to see a chiropractor or wanting to see if this is a good fit for you, I would seek out those types of chiropractors. You want to make sure that person isn't saying words that are scary about what they find in your body. If you have natural aging, normal processes going on, they shouldn't use the words like you've got a bad spine or you've got a degenerative disc or et cetera. So they probably shouldn't be doing full spine x-rays. That is my own bias, and I just don't see the need to do full spine x-rays. That is not the way we teach here at Western States. I would avoid chiropractors that want to put you on a big lengthy treatment plan, seeing you three times a week for the rest of your life. That's probably not something that is necessary, needed, or holds water in the literature. So those are the big ones. Those are the big things that I would look for in seeing a chiropractor. But also, this is what that's what we do as chiropractic, chiropractors treating patients.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Wise words from Dr. Lady on that. I can't tell you. Yes, my family has experienced a long treatment plan. And it was at some point where one of my family members said, What am I doing after 10 years? So yeah. And I think there's examples of that probably over and over again. But there are so many great practitioners that really take the health and well-being and the financial considerations and all of that into account for their patients. Last couple of questions in a few words, when you think about University of Western States, in just a few words, yeah. What comes to mind?

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Integrity for sure. Committed, evidence informed or evidence-based, supportive. Yeah, those are the few that I won't keep going because I can keep this would take an hour.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

We can fill up a journal. That's right. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. What does whole person health mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Whole person health, from my perspective as a chiropractic physician and now educator, it means that we know what our lane is. It means that we know where to get our patients. If they aren't a chiropractic patient, we know where to get them to. We know how to triage. We aren't going to treat the whole person, but we are going to treat the whole person in the sense that we know who to refer to when we have to.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Great answer. Yeah. Great answer. All right.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

We can't be good at everything.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

No, and no one can, right? So where can people find you online on social media? And if you have any books or research you want to point people towards, what that would be great too.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

So yeah. So I you can reach me at sulady at uws.edu, and then I am also in and in LinkedIn. I don't know how you would say that in LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

On LinkedIn. On LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Weird. At Suzanne Lady DC. So you can find me there. And I would encourage you if you're contemplating a career in chiropractic to or you want to know more about what we've talked about with this biopsychosocial pain thing. That's my jam. I love talking about that stuff. Biopsychosocial pain. You should read more. Peter O'Sullivan, he's a physical therapist. Greg Lehman is a DC and a PT. Lorma Mosley, David Butler, they're physios from Australia authors, DC authors, Michael Schneider, those folks are amazing. They've published a lot in this realm of the biopsychosocial aspect of pain. So those would be a few things to start, a few places to start. And then if you haven't, if you're treating an organ or you're interested in practicing an organ, the state of Oregon has a resource for healthcare professionals, and it is www.orgonpainguidance.org. And it's a booklet toolkit for clinicians and for patients alike. So I, a colleague of mine, created this amazing resource, and I think everyone should know about it.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

All right. That's great. We'll put that in the show notes for once we upload the episode. That's great. Dr. Lady, so grateful to have you on the show today. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Dr. Long, it's been a pleasure. And you are a great asset for us. Thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

It's all too easy with seriously with working with colleagues like yourself. So to our audience, thank you for spending time with us. I encourage you to keep exploring the vast world of health and wellness and all that it offers and helps us lead richer, healthier, and happier lives. As a reminder, find us online at www.us.edu and visit us on social media. I hope you'll continue to join me and all of our guests as we continue to explore the mind, body, and beyond right here at University of Western States, online and live on ground here in Portland, Oregon. Take care and be well. Signing off for now. Bye bye.