I had the fortunate opportunity to do field observations with Dr. Thoma as part of my curriculum at Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine. At first I was a bit skeptical of my field placement since I was going to school to be an ND not a DC. My past experience with Chiropracters had been mostly chiropractic adjustments. Momentarily, I had found these types of manipulations would provide relief, but would never actually get to the root of the problem. In some people, these may be more harmful than helpful. I was pleasantly surprised when this was not his main approach to treating his patients.
Naturopathic medicine is based on 6 overarching principles. One of which is finding and treating the cause. This is what he would do with each one of his patients. He took the time to really see what was going on and make recommendations accordingly. He used techniques that were not forceful however very effective. He strived to have every patient walk out of the door feeling better than they walked in and gaining the relief they were looking for. The patients would have to do their part. He would provide corrective postural or exercise regiments to help reverse what was going on long-term and/or help them perform at another level. He would do nerve stretching, soft tissue manipulations/gua sha, and acupuncture that would provide immediate relief by pin pointing exactly where root of the pain was coming from. He focused on the source of pain, nerves. Nucca adjustments amazed me each time how he was able to align the spine using a gentle procedures instead of forceful hip adjustments.
I am only a first year medical student and I feel like I have a good basis in physical medicine that I will be able to carry with me in my career. I look forward to building upon the clinical pearls I learned during my field observation at Infinity Spine Center. I would highly recommend Dr. Thoma to anyone and everyone.