This is a first for the podcast. Dr. Kevin Pecca is my first repeat guest, and I could not be more excited about it. The last time we spoke, he was a student intern in my office dreaming about what came next. Now he is running his own Blair upper cervical practice on the East Coast, and I wanted to hear everything that happened in between.
Kevin graduated chiropractic school in December, road tripped across the country with his cousin and another chiropractic student, and by January first he was already working alongside Dr. Meg Banich, one of the best in our field with over thirty years of experience. He calls it an honor to learn from her, and from everyone else who mentored him along the way, myself included. But as anyone who has made that leap knows, nothing fully prepares you for the moment the internship ends and it is just you in the room with a patient.
Overconfident, Then Humbled, Then Better
Kevin admitted something refreshingly honest. He said he was overconfident when he started. He had seen so many remarkable outcomes during his internship that he walked in believing he could help everybody. Then real practice happened. The easy wins came first, and then came the patients who did not fit any pattern he recognized yet, the ones who required him to slow down and actually adjust his skill set to meet them where they were.
One of his early patients came in with the entire left side of her body numb. There is no textbook chapter that fully prepares you for that moment. What steadied him was trusting the Blair analysis itself, the principle that we are not chasing symptoms but clearing interference at the brainstem so the body has a real shot at healing.
Slow and Steady Wins the Race
Kevin told me about another early patient, a woman in such severe low back pain that she could barely sit in the X-ray chair and was scheduled for surgery within weeks. Her recovery was not a single dramatic adjustment. It took about two months of steady care before her husband called to say he had his wife back. She no longer needed surgery. She was living her life again.
This is the story we do not tell often enough. Chiropractic works, but healing is a process, not a switch. One of our own thirty three principles says it plainly, that all processes take time. It takes time to become dysfunctional, and it takes time to heal. Kevin lived that truth again with a patient dealing with Meniere's disease. Around the one month mark she felt no different. He told her to trust the process, and by the three or four month mark, the ringing, the dizziness, and the blurred vision were gone. Knowing when to adjust and, just as important, when to leave a correction alone and let the body do its work, is one of the most underrated skills in this profession.
Learning to Show Up at 100 Percent
Kevin had almost no transition time between graduating and stepping into full time practice. He described having to change everything about how he lived outside the office, eating better, working out, cutting back on distractions, all so he could walk in fully present for his patients. He put it simply. His brain had to be fully firing and his heart had to be at 100 percent every time he walked through that door, because patients can tell the difference when you are not.
His advice to any student preparing to start their own practice is to spend time associating with an experienced doctor first, especially in upper cervical work, where the cases that walk through the door can be genuinely complex. He talked about people who cannot walk, people who cannot lie on their side without the room spinning, and how critical it is to have that mentorship before carrying that responsibility alone. What struck me most was his point that the doctors who are genuinely excellent at this work also tend to be the most generous with their knowledge, no expensive certification required, just a willingness to show up and ask.
Building His Own Practice, and His Own Podcast
Kevin now runs Montclair Upper Cervical Chiropractic, recently relocated a short distance to West Orange, New Jersey, a practice with three generations of history that he has been entrusted to carry forward. He also hosts his own podcast, Expect Miracles, something he had quietly wanted to do for a long time. He told me the story of thinking about starting one, and then walking into my office two weeks later to find out I was starting mine. It was Tom who finally told him to stop waiting and just do it, advice Kevin says changed the trajectory of his practice.
Hearing him talk about the referrals he gets from patients with Meniere's disease, and the relief on their faces when years of ringing in the ears finally stops, is a reminder of why this work matters. It is easy to focus on the cases that are not going well. It is the ones who walk in barely able to stand and walk out saying they have their life back that keep you going.
I am so proud of the doctor Kevin has become, and I cannot wait to visit his office and see it in person.
Listen to the full conversation with Dr. Kevin Pecca on the Well Connected Podcast: Live Your Life in Alignment. Available wherever you get your podcasts.
Find Dr. Pecca at drkevinpecca.com. Find us at wellconnectedchiro.com.
