Cleveland Chiropractic College

Doctors return home

When Shan (pronounced Shawn) Wilson and a group of friends celebrated their 2002 graduation from Miller High School, west of Springfield, they took a float on the Current River. It was from Akers Ferry to Two Rivers. The river was clear and deep, rimmed with grey bluffs and white-barked sycamore trees. They paddled into a cave spring; they soaked up the sun, and they cooled off in the cold water. That night, the boys laid their fried and uncovered bodies on a gravel bar where swirling, grey clouds of appreciative mosquitoes blanketed them. Two days later, when they hit the take out point, burned to a crisp and covered with inching welts, Shan was sure of two things - he had just experienced the best trip of his life, and he wanted to live in the area.

Meanwhile, around the same time and just a few miles away as a crow flies, Kalenna Smith was delivering her valedictorian speech to 42 fellow Summersville High School classmates. Kalenna, a popular student and star volleyball player, had already mapped out her life. She wanted to become a doctor, and she wanted to live in the area.

Neither knew of the other, but just as the Jack's Fork and the Current River joined at Two Rivers, the flow of time and common dreams would bring Shan and Kalenna together, and nine years later, back to Texas County to live and work as Drs. Shan and Kalenna (Smith) Wilson.

Early ambitions

Shan Wilson is familiar with rural life. Farming was a part of the family businesses which included his father's management position at a trucking firm and his mother's presence as a P.E. teacher at Miller High School. Hunting and fishing were a part of his life growing up in the community between Ash Grove and Everton. "My family always hunted and fished," said Shan. "My first deer was a 6-point buck, taken with a rifle when I was 13, but the next year when I took my first deer with a bow, I became obsessed."

Extreme focus is a part of Shan's personality. By 8th grade, he knew he wanted to become a dentist. "At first I wanted to be an architect. I love building things, making small models."

But a day observing changed his mind. "My dad suggested dentistry, and after I shadowed my own dentist, I decided that was what I wanted to do," said Shan. "Dentistry is intricate work. You build things on a small scale while you get to help people."

The same year Shan was getting his first deer in Dade County, 13-year-old Kalenna also bagged her first button buck in the Shannon County woods where her dad, Kenny Smith, logged. Surrounded by family and attending the school where her mother Sandy was a career Summersville elementary teacher, activities were usually family affairs. So when her father's back was broken in a logging accident during her eighth grade year, Kalenna spent many long hours at the medical center in Columbia, Mo. providing family support. It was here she decided she wanted to become a physician and return home to practice.

Pros And Cons Of Chiropractic Colleges Los Angeles

Two chiropractic colleges Los Angeles are Cleveland Chiropractic College off the Hollywood Freeway and Los Angeles School of Chiropractic twenty miles away in Whittier which is within the Southern California University of Health Sciences campus. The University combines both a chiropractic and acupuncture/oriental degree program.

Cleveland is located near many of the attractions found in the Southern CA area like Disneyland, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, beaches, and just off the Hollywood Freeway. Cleveland has a four-year program as well as an accelerated program which a person can complete in ten trimesters.

At Cleveland, you start learning specialized techniques in the first trimester of study. Though anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry are all important sciences, at Cleveland professors understand that these are not ends in themselves. They are basics that the chiropractor needs to know but know to adjust the spine and what tools will help the most in a specific patient. The course balances modern techniques with the traditional and time-tested ones. Lab work and lecture help the student to balance his learning.

Cleveland starts students on the road to their practice in the first year of study. The faculty there sees the need for students to learn how to help the patients rather than for the students to gain useless information that they may not use. The school sees the value of the sciences: biochemistry and biological sciences but they recognize that some of the information may not help the patient as much as a hands-on education with a skilled doctor might.

LACC however uses the more traditional approach not allowing students the benefit of a hands-on education until their second year of classes. This school is on the Southern California University of Health Sciences campus. Lots of opportunities for gaining experience happen there once the applicant has completed the basic education requirements. This school offers a combined course for learning to be a chiropractor as well as becoming a acupuncturist. The school uses not only its health centers but also the health centers of all the Cal State colleges for the purpose of giving its students hands-on experience.

Both colleges use rotation to acquaint students with the many styles and techniques that other chiropractors use. The students work with faculty members, other chiropractors outside of the college, and college-educated doctors. They work at sporting events with injured students, in community-based programs, and in medical offices with doctors.

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