I n December of 1948, Dr. Monte Greenawalt opened his first practice in the basement of a bank in Dubuque, Iowa. A native of the area, he had attended the University of Dubuque and Loras College before enlisting in the military during World War 11. Following that, he had an adverse reaction to a series of inoculations and was left paralyzed. With the assistance of a chiropractor, he was able to regain control of his body and the ability to walk again. That "traumatic and healing" experience led him to study chiropractic. He enrolled at Lincoln Chiropractic College and, after graduating, received postgraduate training at Northwestern College of Chiropractic in the field of orthopedics, which resulted in his receiving a Diplomate in the American Board of Chiropractic Orthopedics. He is a member of the American College of Chiropractic Orthopedists and a Fellow in the International College of Chiropractic. The fountainhead of one of the profession's most successful and philanthropic companies in the chiropractic profession, Dr. Monte Greenawalt of Foot Levelers, shares with The American Chiropractor (TAC) a glimpse at the lessons he's learned over the years in the struggle to secure for chiropractic a mainstream health model. TAC: Dr. Greenawalt, tell us how you came to start Foot Levelers. GREENAWALT: Foot Levelers was created to solve the problem that many chiropractors face in daily practice—helping adjustments to hold better. Early on in practice, I was dissatisfied with the fact that spinal adjustments just wouldn't hold the way I thought they should. I would see a patient, correct a subluxation and, in a few days' time, the adjustment needed to be made again. I didn't think that the patients were getting the level of benefits that I wanted them to have. "Why won't my adjustments hold?" I asked myself over and over. My studies led me to the feet, the foundation for the entire body. I learned how poor foot posture could easily cause a series of distortions throughout the body, often with long-term and painful consequences. I discovered that, before most adjustments could hold, the feet would have to be balanced. I decided that the solution was in custom-measured and custom-made foot supports. I went to a podiatrist with this idea, but the two of us were not able to solve the problem. So, with a little capital and the backing of a few good friends, we decided that we would make our own. The company and our first product was called "Foot Levelers"—named for the custom-made, in-shoe spinal/pelvic stabilizers. I designed an instrument that would take sixteen different measurements of the foot and, from these measurements, the first Foot Levelers were made. Other doctors began to hear about the product and its success in helping to maintain adjustments. We made more of the measuring instruments and placed them in chiropractic clinics. Foot Levelers were made for chiropractic patients and they worked! One of the troubles at that time was training doctors how to use the measuring instrument with accuracy. A simpler way of measuring had to be found, one that doctors across the country could use without error. After trying several possibilities, the answer was found. A foam substance could be used to make an impression of the weightbearing foot. All the patient needed to do was step into a box containing the foam, and all the doctor had to do was send the box containing those casts back to Foot Levelers, where measurements would be taken for the corrective supports. The business began to grow as more patients were helped. For the first dozen years of the company's existence, our base of operations was in a small carriage house next to my clinic. The tiny location served our needs in the beginning but, by the mid-60's, we needed more room. A three-story empty dairy at the edge of town gave us the extra room we needed and would be our address for the next twenty years. In 1968,1 suffered a serious neck injury from an automobile accident. I was unable to work for two years, and couldn't do much more than lie on the bed. I knew that I had gone too far to give up, so I spent a lot of time developing ideas and trying to be of service to doctors. I was experiencing some discomfort from my injuries and was unable to get comfortable. From this discomfort came a therapeutic traction device in the form of a uniquely designed bed pillow. "Pillo-Pedic" turned into a win-win-win—it helped me, it gave chiropractors a new adjunct to their cervical adjustments, and it provided patients with neck support and comfort while they slept. When I was a little better and could sit up, 1 returned to the business of giving lectures and seminars around the country. I spoke from my own experience on orthopedics and on the management of a chiropractic practice. Every night, I would say to myself, "My creative mind will come forth with new and productive ideas." I was fortunate that the ideas kept coming out of my own experiences and out of my desire to help other people. TAC: Mow has incorporating family into your business affected your relationship with each other? GREENAWALT: [My son] Kent and I work together delightfully well. The reason for that is we have been consistent in our vi- sion from day one—doing everything we could to help the DCs help the patients. It's a simple vision that is very powerful and withstands the test of time. Kent and I have a mutual respect for each other that has been made stronger with time. We are two different generations with one outcome in mind—the wisdom of one with the ideas of another with one goal in mind—to help the DCs help their patients. TAC: What caused you to look to the foot originally when dealing with chiropractic related issues? GREENAWALT: When I started Foot Level-ers, it was a result of the fact that I had hospital privileges and noticed that when patients were lying in bed, they retained their corrections better. It seemed logical that standing on your feet had something to do with the holding power of the adjustments. TAC: What is the most common problem you see among chiropractors today? GREENAWALT: Selling themselves short. We see so many doctors who sell themselves short on what they can do to help patients and even on their abilities to help themselves. If I could get into the minds of chiropractors out there, I would whisper to them, "You and your hands make the world a better place." TAC: What is the biggest problem or challenge you see in the chiropractic profession today? GREENAWALT: Unfortunately, we face some of the same problems today as we did when I was in practice. We have come a long way with insurance and working with other health care programs, but we are still only at the beginning. It bothers me that so many ofmy colleagues do not get more involved. They are not members of their state or national associations. I shake my head and think—you are legal now to practice chiropractic. It wasn't always so. What are you doing to reach out and help more people? I urge every chiropractor to actively support the growth and development of this great profession. TAC: What single piece of advice would you give a new chiropractor just starting out? GREENAWALT: The body is composed of integrated and interrelated components that are not separable. Be the doctor you were trained to be. Treat the entire body: the physical, emotional and the chemical, and realize that it IS all connected (the foot bone's connected to the leg bone, and so on). To get the results you want, look at the whole picture. TAC: Do you have any recommended marketing strategies that chiropractors can do to attract new patients and to keep current patients? GREENAWALT: People talk about how you need to "sell" chiropractic. There's nobody that wants to buy it. They don't want to buy an operation or dental work either. But they want to buy what it can provide for them. What we have to sell to the patient is what chiropractic can do for them. And the greatest and the most fabulous thing that chiropractic has to offer is the broad range of services that it can render to a patient. Patients will WANT what you have to offer if they understand what you have. What the body can do almost seems like it's being lost today because many of the young chiropractors may not understand how wonderful chiropractic is and what it can do. A chiropractor is really a neurologist. It's the nerves that make the body function, and it is your change in joint position in the spine and the other joints of the body that bring about a reaction in the body that is either positive or negative. As a good chiropractor, you will find out where the adjustment is needed to get a good response. That's what you're searching for. Other things to remember: Demonstrate what a change in joint position can result in for the patient. Show them that, when you have better balance, your adjustments hold better. The body is chemical; look at nutrition and how it affects the body. The body is emotional; look at the emotional factors of a patient's life. How do you get a patient in? Talk to them. Tell them and show them what you can do for them. Talk to patients in a way that they can understand you. Then, when it's time, they can make their own decisions. Doctor means teacher, so be the teacher. One demonstration that goes above and beyond is to put your arms straight out in front of you with your hands up and have someone else stand across from you and do the same thing, making your palms touch. When you begin to push you'll find that person pushes back. You don't have to tell them to; that's an automatic reflex. That's what there is with sales. When you try to sell to somebody, their automatic reflex is to say, "No." The way you do it is to lead. If you lay your hands with the palms up and have the other person put the palms down on your hands, with the elbows loose, and you move your hand around, the other person's hand will move with yours. So, it's better to lead than to push. TAC: Where do you see the future of chiropractic headed? GREENAWALT: 1 don't think I'm close enough to make a judgment call on that now; but I will say that it's frightening to me to see that the chiropractor of the future does not have the understanding of exactly what they have with their hands and treating patients with chiropractic. When you go back to where it was when we came out, almost everybody that went into chiropractic went there because they had a good experience with it and knows what chiropractic can do for them and their family. To be successful, you do what you truly enjoy doing. And, if you do, it will provide you with a quality of life that's acceptable and can even give you more if you put more effort into it. So, really, it comes up to who we are. And the other thing is: It's your attitude that will take you to your altitude. It can either take you up or take you down. You become who you think you are. You become what you think about. Your thoughts are so powerful that you attract and bring into your life what you think about. Dr. Greenawalt may be reached at [email protected]. | Monte Greenawalt, DC Photos 1. Greenawalt Chiropractic Clinic, 1973 2. Dr. Greenawalt in his first office--basement of America Trust and Savings Bank, 1949 3. Dr. Greenawalt with his grandchild Photos--1 & 3. Monte & son Kent 2. Portrait of Dr. Monte Greenawalt
