Palmer College A Conversation with Port Orange Campus President, Dr. Peter Martin
INTERVIEW
Bill Koch
As many of you already know, I am a 1967 graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic. Even after almost five decades, my time at Palmer remains one of my fondest memories. It was a life-changing experience, and I feel privileged and proud to be a Palmer graduate. Back then, Palmer had only one campus in Davenport, Iowa. Now there are three. The newest, established in 2002, is in the sunny, cheerful, small town of Port Orange, Florida, near Daytona Beach.
My first visit to the Palmer Florida campus was for the college’s thirteenth homecoming in February 2015. Although I had heaid many good things about that campus, I was amazed by the beauty of the facility and very impressed with the quality of the faculty, students, and the continuing-education programs that were presented.
I took advantage of the homecoming weekend to become reacquainted with Palmer College President Dr. Peter Martin, whom I had not seen in 47 years. I was especially interested in healing how he had developed the Port Orange campus, and how he had accomplished so much in such a short period.
■ "Under his leadership, in the 14 short years since opening with a class of 40 students, the Port Orange campus has become the third largest chiropractic campus in the world. J Ï
It is a story worth sharing with my readers—a story of commitment, persistence, hard work, careful planning, and execution, as well as the creative adventure involved in the evolution of chiropractic education that Palmer College represents. It is a good example and indicator of how powerful and influential our profession has become in the 50 years since Dr. Martin and I were students in Davenport.
Dr. Martin and I first met in 1965 when we were freshmen at Palmer. It was hard not to notice Peter Martin since he was an immediate student celebrity. As a freshman at Palmer, he was already “Dr. Martin,” having earned two diplomas in osteopathic and naturopathic medicine in England before beginning his study of chiropractic. We were all impressed.
After receiving his Doctor of Chiropractic degree summa cum laude in 1968, Dr. Martin began an interesting and very accomplished career as a practitioner, educator, and college administrator. His CV is impressive—his accomplishments too numerous to list here.
His greatest accomplishment is represented by the phenomenal success of Palmer’s Port Orange Florida campus since he began as president there in 2005. Under his leadership, in the 14 short years since opening with a class of 40 students, the Port Orange campus has become the third largest chiropractic campus in the world. That amazes me.
I am eager to share our recent conversation about the history of our profession and the history of Palmer and the city of Port Orange.
KOCH: Peter, it is such a pleasure to have the opportunity to catch up and reminisce with an old friend I haven’t seen in almost 50 years.
MARTIN: That’s true, Bill. It is such fun to be with people with whom you share history and memories. Do you recall our baccalaureate reception at the Palmer Residence when Dr. Dave Palmer, in a few moments of candor, confided that it was not easy being B. J.’s son?
KOCH: Oh, yes, I remember that day very well. I could never forget Dr. Dave’s vivid description of being a young boy charged with tlie responsibility for the care and feeding of B. J. ’s alligators, which B. J. kept in a pit in the basement of the Palmer Residence during the cold Iowa winters.
I remember Dave saying, “Other boys had to take out the hash; I had to feed the alligators. Do you know how bad alligators smell when in a closed space? And they don’t appreciate what you do for them, either. They will happily eat you if given the opportunity! That was not much fun for a kid.”
That painted quite a picture. And there was something about that story that I found very revealing.
MARTIN: Yes, there ai e lots of great old memories, Bill. But it is also great to continue to make new ones.
KOCH: Yes, it seems you have spent your career creating news and stories worth remembering. Like how Palmer came to have a campus in Port Orange. I found that story very interesting. It is not what I expected.
MARTIN: It is a good story—a serendipitous win-win for Palmer and the town of Port Orange, and a great example of how when things aie right, they work out well for all parties concerned. It came together like this:
Dr. James Hether was a successful chiropractor who practiced in Port Orange for many years. He was very active in the com-
munity and a good friend of the city’s mayor, Dorothy Hukill. One day Mayor Hukill told Dr. Hether that she and the city council thought that having a college in Port Orange would be a great asset to the city, culturally as well as economically.
As an active alumnus of Palmer, Dr. Hether knew that the Palmer Board of Directors had often discussed the idea of building a branch of the college in Florida. With Mayor Hukill’s approval, he approached the then Palmer chancellor, Dr. Michael Crawford, about the possible benefits of locating a branch of the college in Port Orange, noting that the city’s fathers were very receptive to the prospect of Palmer building a chiropractic college there.
fifiWe now have more than 800 students, and I think that is a perfect number for us to provide the quality of education that we can be proud of. ? J
Things moved along very nicely after that. The Palmer Board of Trustees liked the location and the Port Orange City Council offered a beautiful 2 5-acre tract of land in a prime location with very attractive terms. They also offered the building that now houses our student clinic. It was our first classroom building. As we were able to develop our building program, that building became our student clinic. And you have seen our beautiful, state-of-the-art classroom buildings.
The city of Port Orange has been very good to us, and we in turn have been good for Port Orange.
KOCH: Peter, you ai e a master of the understatement. I was astounded when, at an alumni luncheon that you hosted, you told us that over the past decade, Palmer helped create 250 local jobs and brought $25.1 million into the community through building and clinic renovation projects. And that the total economic impact that the school had on the Port Orange-Daytona Beach area in 2011 was $ 122 million. I would say that Palmer has been extremely good for the city.
MARTIN: That’s right, Bill. Also, consider that in 2011 our clinics provided 49,000 patient visits to members of the community, and additionally provided care for 11,000 patients free of charge through the Palmer Outreach Clinics. Each year since then, we have exceeded those figures.
KOCH: Truly impressive.
So, tell me, Peter, how many students aie currently enrolled at the college and how many would you optimally like to have?
MARTIN: We now have more than 800 students, and I think that is a perfect number for us to provide the quality of education that we can be proud of. Right now, the numbers all seem
to be working perfectly. We have a fulltime academic faculty of 35—increasing to 57 if you include the clinic faculty—and we have a support staff of 75, for a total of 130 employees. This allows us to provide each student with the kind of attention needed for the highest level of education and success.
KOCH: When I was at homecoming in February, you told me about the new library you were building. How is that going?
MARTIN: It is complete, and we aie very pleased with it. It is a very modem library with a mainly digital format, so there is more to it than meets the eye. We also have electronic shelving that allows us to efficiently store and access our traditional book inventory. And our osteological collection is displayed in the library, allowing the students easy access to it for study.
KOCH: Peter, in one of our previous conversations, you told me that you have developed an educational model that is a departure from that of the other Palmer colleges. How does it differ and why did you develop it?
MARTIN: When the new campus was established, Palmer administrators were given the task of establishing the curriculum. We worked long and hard on it together with the objective of giving our students the best possible educational experience, while taking maximum advantage of the strengths of our academic and clinical faculty.
We have established an integrated curriculum that takes a regional approach to anatomy, physiology, histology, radiology, and pathology. The curriculum for each quarter is divided into four silos: stmctural, functional, diagnostic, and treatment.
This, of course, differs significantly from the systemic model that was employed when we were in school. We aie quite satisfied with it, but it is a work in progress. You might say we aie developing and fine-tuning it on the fly.
KOCH: There is one more thing I want to discuss. Before I let you go, I must commend Dr. Trevor Ireland, Dr. Marchiori, the administrative team, and the members of the Palmer College Board of Trastees for the work you did in drafting the “Chiropractic Identity Statement.” Please tell us about it.
MARTIN: I am happy to do that, Bill.
The profession has been long overdue for a clear, concise, and easily understood statement of what chiropractic is and what we do. It needed to be something that the majority of the profession could agree on regardless of technique approach and practice model.
It also needed to be short and sweet, or what I call an “elevator statement.” That is a brief but meaningful statement that can be articulated in the time it takes an elevator to go from one floor to the next.
KOCH: It would be quite difficult to fulfill that set of criteria in a few words. You would have to choose those words very carefully.
MARTIN: It proved to be a very ambitious project, much more so than you might have expected. We all have our own definitions and descriptions of what chiropractic is, and we do not all necessarily agree on the details. Yet, our goal was to make our identity and mission statements and our practice paradigm as inclusive as possible so that they could be embraced by the majority of doctors. We wanted our statement to reflect our traditional values as well as most contemporary practice styles and missions. It was quite a challenge. I think that we succeeded.
Identity Statement: A Doctor of Chiropractic is the primary care professional for spinal health and well-being.
We also drafted statements of our mission, values, foundational pillais, philosophy, and practice paradigm. Here is an excerpt from the statement of our practice paradigm:
“Chiropractic focuses on neurological and musculoskeletal integrity, and aims to favorably impact health and well-being, relieve pain and infirmity, enhance performance, and improve quality of life without drugs or surgery ... Doctors of Chiropractic promote health, wellness and disease prevention by evaluating relevant indicators and risk factors, and by providing care directed at mitigating health risks and encouraging
healthy lifestyles. ”
KOCH: Congratulations, Peter. I think that you did a great job. I am sorry that space doesn’t allow us to print the entire text of the “Chiropractic Pillai s, Mission, Values Practice Paradigm and Philosophy Statement,” but I would urge our readers to go to www.PALMER.EDU to read it in its entirety.
MARTIN: Thanks, Bill. This is Palmer’s gift to the profession to help doctors of chiropractic better articulate who we ai e and what we do.
KOCH: Thank you, Peter. Your educational leadership and contributions to our profession over these many years aie incalculable.
SDr Bill Koch is a 1967 Cum Laude graduate of Palmer. After 30 years of practice in The Hamptons, l| NY, he retired and moved to Abaco, Bahamas, where he and his wife Kiana travel by boat to provide ChiroI» « practic care to the residents of the remote out islands. They now split their time between their beloved islands and their home in Mount Dora, Florida. Dr. Koch has published two books: Chiropractic the Superior Alternative and Conversations with Chiropractic Technique Masters, available through Amazon, com. He writes a blog, "ChiroPractice Made Perfect" at http:// DrWilliamHKoch.com and is available to teach classes in Advanced Integrated Chiropractic Techniques.
Contact him via email at outislanddcfDr WilliamHKoch. com
