From Patient To Doctor With Dr. Max Gooing

 

Growing up in a chiropractic household, Dr. Max Gooing always knew the power of chiropractic in his life for his health. Once he experienced Blair Chiropractic, he decided to make it a career. In this episode, he joins Liz Hoefer as they talk about his transformation from patient to doctor with Blair Upper Cervical Chiropractic. Get to know Dr. Max’s story as they take a look at the time when he was an intern at Liz’s office and the pain he was going through. Dr. Max had chronic dizziness that turned into uncontrollable depression and anxiety. Understand how Max’s struggles pushed him to find the healing he needed and pass on that healing to others. Tune in and learn how to trust the healing process.

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From Patient To Doctor With Dr. Max Gooing

Max Gooing’s Amazing Journey To Becoming A Chiropractor

I’m excited about my guest. He has an incredible story to tell about his journey with Blair Upper Cervical Chiropractic. Without further ado, I’d like to welcome Dr. Max Gooing to the show.

Thank you so much, Dr. Hoefer. I appreciate you having me and allowing me to share my story with everyone.

I am proud of you because you were an intern in my office officially for a year but unofficially, I walked through the entire journey of chiropractic school with you because I had the most incredible fortune to take care of you before you even started chiropractic school. Give me a little understanding about where you were when we met, what was going on and where you are now.

There are probably two facets to that. One professionally, chiropractic-wise and healthcare provider. More importantly, what you provided for me as a provider, which was the Blair correction, which was amazing. Before I met you, it had been 1.5 years at that time that I’m suffering from chronic dizziness that turned into depression and anxiety. That became uncontrollable. I was unable to be myself. I couldn’t find ways to go outside of the house comfortably. I couldn’t stand for periods of time. I felt like I had constant panic attacks. All these coalesce into issues of going to class, being with friends and family. That was my main issue before coming to you. You correct that for me, we could talk more about that. The other side was developing myself as a young professional. You were the final key for me to move into the profession of chiropractic. My dad is a chiropractor and I love the profession. It has influenced me as well, but seeing the different options that are out there within a singular profession such as chiropractic was the turning point, especially seeing how much it could greatly affect myself.

What’s remarkable about that is I’m really good friends with your dad, Dr. Tim Gooing. He’s an amazing human. He said, “I think Dr. Hoefer can help my son.” There are three stories within this story. It’s interprofessional collaboration, being able to know when the skills you have don’t match what the patient you have is in need of. You said that the reason you decided to go into chiropractic was this Blair correction and the mentorship of professional training. This is a cool story to unpack. I remember meeting you at the Cal Chiro Conference in San Diego in 2016. I remember I did a quick leg check on you at the hotel. I was like, “You’ve got some stuff going on in your upper cervical spine. Why don’t you come in? We’ll do an exam, take some imaging and see what happens.” Walk me through what you’ve experienced since getting your first Blair Upper Cervical Correction.

It feels like years ago that I had my first intense retracing. That was probably the most unique thing with the correction. Before you get into that, the most interesting part for me is when you did the first correction. You said to me that I might feel dizzy or tired or just heavy after the first correction because my body instantly goes into a healing state. I felt extremely tired right after the correction. The biggest thing that I remember is that I got my stability that I lost for about 1.5 years right then and there on the table again. I remember going back to the resting room and started crying because I thought that I’d never had that back. That was probably the biggest thing for me. I noticed that I could walk around and live life with more stability, fewer instances of panic, anxiety and dizziness spells. That was good. It was interesting when you would predict the retracing intervals that it would be intense, but then also dissipate quickly with supportive care without ever re-adjusting.

Healing is a whole process, and it doesn't happen instantaneously. You have to work with the ebbs and flows of the healing process. Click To Tweet

That’s the beauty behind the upper cervical work. If you get it and set it and leave it alone, it’s like a dehydrator, set it and forget it. You start to heal and then you go through these cycles. Because we understand physiology and epigenetics, and how normal physiology is supposed to work, we can tell patients in advance, “During these specific periods of time, you’re going to experience the old manifestation of the things that you walked in the door with.” We can educate people on the fact that their body is healing and it’s a normal process, then it takes that fear and that anxiety out of it. They’re like, “Dr. Hoefer said this was going to happen. I’m not scared. I’m thankful.”

Giving them the preparation for it and the fact that you know it’s coming speaks volumes to how well-versed you are in the technique.

Not only that but it also helps to ease the confusion or the fear. For me, whenever I’ve had symptoms in the past of something, it triggered almost a PTSD response like, “Is this ever going to end? Am I going back down a bad path?” When I educate people about retracing, they feel confident knowing that their body is working and they celebrate and they listen more not to me, but to their body. Their body will tell them, “Today’s probably not a good day to do some deadlifts.” They don’t and then they get through it. Three days later, they’re back to doing powerhouse weightlifting.

Learn to read your body. That’s the important thing about retracing because healing is a whole process and it doesn’t happen instantaneously. You have to work with the ebbs and flows of the healing process.

This is the first time I’m hearing that you teared up because you never thought you’d get your stability back. It’s such a gift for me to know that instantaneously, you had that profound moment and it’s been carrying on all these years. After your correction, you were deciding what you wanted to do. You were finishing up undergrad and you were like, “What’s my next step?”

That was 2016 and I graduated in March 2017. That was about another year. I was torn between a lot of healthcare professions, but the bottom line was that the more I saw of what you and my dad could provide in chiropractic. All of these did help, but the final teetering structure that led me into chiropractic was the fact that my life was changed with a non-medical approach in a way that I could have never imagined. I decided that if I could provide similar relief to other people in my life, then I would be living my life with purpose. That is what I felt. What you provided for me was the deciding factor. That chiropractic is what I want to provide for others.

 

Just being able to take you from patient to chiropractic student to now doctor, I’m so proud of you and everything that you’ve done. Talk to me about that experience going through chiropractic school, knowing that the upper cervical is a major factor of stability, health and healing.

The thing with chiropractic is there are many varying opinions. Everyone wants to say this and that. It’s important to keep perspective on what everyone provides and to know the specificity and effectiveness of upper cervical care going through early on. It helped shape what my focus was early on. I’ve always wanted to focus on the neck and find ways to help people very specifically in the neck because it is such a delicate neurological region. Going through school helped me to shape my focus because what you provide is a very gentle, non-invasive way of approaching the neck that leads to long-term stability. We could get into a whole conversation of adjusting and all that stuff, but you want the joint to hold. Otherwise, it’ll start to slide its place. It’ll not be where it needs to be. A convoluted answer, early on, it helped me to want to focus on ways that I could provide that.

We got to be intern doctor together for a year. Now you’ve graduated you are about to take your exam to get licensed in the State of California, and probably in the next couple of months, you’re going to be providing care.

I am still shocked by that. I want to reiterate how grateful I am for all of your influence, in 2020 in particular and everything. You wrote my letter of recommendation and you helped my way through school. My last year of interning and learning clinical skills would not have been the same without you. I appreciate you for that.

It’s my pleasure. It’s so neat to get to see the transformation that’s occurred from patient to doctor. I feel like because my life was given back to me all those years ago because of Blair Upper Cervical Correction, it’s the least I could do to pour into future generations of chiropractic because someday, my great-grandkids are going to be Blair doctors.

You’re investing in your own future.

The profession doesn't have to be divided if we change our mindset about it. Click To Tweet

I’m sewing into the future of my family’s health because it’s that important. Where are you at? What are you up to? What’s going on?

I am just waiting for my exam. I am excited to be on the brink of joining an actual profession in which I can be a doctor providing patients with health care. I’m just keeping in touch with you and I’m setting up marketing plans, and figuring out how I want to practice. It’s a fun unknown time in the early profession.

Do you feel like this COVID time or post-COVID is going to impact how you’re going to interact or market? What does that look like? You’ve grown up in a chiropractic household. Your dad is an incredible chiropractor in Orange County.

It’s been nice to be able to grow up with that influence so I can see how I want to apply that to my own life, but it is going to be interesting with COVID. I’ve already seen it being interesting because there’s less in-person marketing for someone like myself on the fresher side. Finding new ways to use social media to your advantage is something that I’m trying to be better at. That’s a good thing to use. On top of that in the future going forward, I do see that a lot of patients at least within my age group have become accustomed to online marketing and trusting online rather than in-person referrals. The word of mouth will lead through technology. In general, the future is going to be very technical base, which is something that I’m still trying to learn.

I can assure everyone that Dr. Gooing is good at it because he helps me. Whenever he’s at the office, I’m like, “Max, can you help me with this? Can you help me with that? Figure out how to do this and integrate that.” He’s amazing. I am so thrilled to have you as a colleague now.

I am so thrilled to be your colleague. That is so cool.

 

Right down the road, I fully expect to be taking care of people together. The best part about training you is knowing that I’ve got a friend right next door that if I need anything, I can say, “I need your help,” and you’ll be right there,” and vice versa. You know you can come anytime to get checked, to get help, and to have questions answered. I want to change the idea that the profession is so divided. It doesn’t have to be if we change our mindset about it.

In some coaching that I’ve been into, I’ve heard that it takes two. That’s not true. It takes you. If two people are having a conversation and I decide that I want to be different and have a different relationship with that person, who’s responsible for that? I am. One chiropractor relationship at a time, my intention is to change the way that we communicate as a profession and unify each other, regardless of how we practice. At the end of the day, the bottom line is the person on the table who needs the care that we have to offer.

That’s a great point to make because there are two points to that. One, the way that another chiropractor practices does not affect you in any way. Number two, they’re helping the patient. That’s what we do as chiropractors. If we all understand that there will be more cohesiveness within our community and less animosity. We can be the ones that start that trend because that’s important.

It’s been a delightful conversation with you. I’m incredibly proud of everything you’ve done. I am so excited to hear about the first day in practice for you. You can call me for anything at any time.

Thank you so much. You’ll be right down the road. I love that we can be friends and colleagues, and I know you’ll always be there. Thank you again for everything. I’ll keep you updated.

Thanks, everybody for reading. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, you can always get ahold of me at my website WellConnectedChiro.com and we look forward to talking on the next show. Take care.

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