Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Allison King. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Allison, appreciate you joining us today. How did you get your first job in the field that you practice in today?
The path to my current position at the Department of Veteran Heath Affairs was quite a journey. Before even knowing Chiropractic would be my career path, I lucked into an internship as an adaptive fitness trainer for the Wounded Warriors Unit on Fort Knox (no, I didn’t see the gold :P) Through my internship I grew to love the military population and dreamed of working in the field one day. Fast forward to my first week of Graduate school, and a representative from the VHA came in to talk about possible career pathways within the VA. I knew from that day that I was working toward the position I am in today. As I neared graduation, I applied for and was selected to do a clerkship in the Cincinnati, OH VA Medical Center. Through that process and the guidance of two wonderful providers, Dr. Michael Clay and Dr. Frank Bucki, I was offered a permanent position in Lexington, KY.
This dream – something I imagined taking 10+ years of experience, was suddenly unlocked. It has been a surreal feeling to obtain this position directly out of school, and even more surreal that it happened to be at a facility 1 hour from where I grew up in KY. I feel grateful each day to go to work and say I have my dream job.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My job as a Chiropractor is to promote optimal health through movement. Whether patients arrive in severe pain or near optimal shape, the goal is to provide therapies which will optimize their musculoskeletal system. This is often by manual treatment to their body, specific exercises, and other conservative therapies such as ice, heat, electrical stimulation, massage, etc.
My role as a Yoga teacher is uniquely oriented within the VA – I operate as an instructor in a Post/Traumatic Stress Disorder clinic. Patients are going through in-patient treatments to help manage severe PTSD, and one form of treatment they can attend is yoga. My particular class is in Yoga Nidra, which translates as sleep yoga. This is a mindfulness based practice that greatly assists the nervous system to relax, therefore often becomes a vital part of the patient’s management plan.
Lastly, my role as a professor at the University of Campbellsville College of Chiropractic is to prepare students for their future chiropractic career. My class is on Evidence Informed Chiropractic, which is the general overview of conditions most often seen in a chiropractic setting. It is one of their first exposures to clinical thinking which is fun and challenging all at the same time. Facilitating clinical thinking and watching the light bulbs come on in their head is the best part of instructing.
Have you ever had to pivot?
The biggest pivot I’ve ever made in life was deciding to choose long term heath over short term accomplishment. I grew up racing motocross all over the country. As a senior in high school, I finally worked my way up and was granted a professional license. Shortly thereafter, I sustained a fracture to the T7 vertebra in my mid-back. The setback cost not only my racing season, but also my senior year participation in the state tennis tournament. A heavy blow, but luckily I was able to come back the following year and regain the speed I dropped while off for recovery. Sadly, I was again injured, this time fracturing 3 other vertebra in my spine. Another year down the road and I was back on top once more, until another injury – this time a fractured shoulder along with a torn labrum which needed surgery. This was a ‘third time is a charm’ type of injury – the pivot point of my life. Giving up all that I had worked toward and figuring out who I was going to be without this sport that had come to define me. Luckily, as I made the tough decision to quit racing for good, I landed my Fort Knox internship, leading to the next chapter of my life where the journey to becoming a doctor of chiropractic began.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
After sustaining so many injuries, I grew a sense of ‘I’ve experienced it all, I know how these patients are feeling’ attitude. While I have experienced many types of injuries, and often times can identify with the struggles patients are going through, I had to unlearn that mentality. I needed to learn that everyone handles pain differently – physically and mentally. Starting out in the VA, I quickly learned a lesson in empathy, listening, and understanding as a provider, rather than pushing the ‘no pain no gain’ mentality that my younger self ascribed to. Now that I take the time and let each person process their pain in their own way, I am able to best guide them to the therapies they might need to get back to an optimized life.