Some We’ve Worked With
• AAA Baseball
(Quad-Cities)
• Al-jon/Vezzani Corp.,
• Bandag Manufacturing
• Brand Central Station
• Burlington (IA) Chamber
of Commerce,
• Chiropractic Centennial
Foundation
• Dahl Ford
• Deere & Co.
• Dubuque (IA)
Development
Commission
• First Midwest Banks
• Galesburg (IL) Chamber
of Commerce
• Galesburg Economic
Development Corp.
• Illinois Association of
Public Health
Administrators
• Iowa Development
Commission
• Kartridg Pak
• Life University
• MidCoast
Communications
• Mod-Form Manufacturing
• MPA Media
• National Seal Co.
• Palmer Chiropractic
University System
• Quad-City Thunder
• Quad-City Times
• Quad-Cities Vision
for the Future
• Sears Manufacturing
• The Marketing Advantage
• The Residential Specialist
• Today’s Chiropractic
Lifestyle
• WDG Communications
• White Dog Studios
GLOBALIZATION
NOTE: This sample demonstrates how big stories—and what could be bigger than globalization—can be told more effectively through people than information alone. Also, the idea of a young African-American chiropractic student being accepted, even exalted in China, says something about the goodness and commonality of all mankind. This is another of the stories that gets beneath the surface of facts to touch our aspirations.
High-Jumping the Great Wall
Life University Students Take Chiropractic
to China, Come Back Citizens of the World
(excerpted)
By Randy Heuston
Special Assistant to the President
Life University
When Ossie Carney walks down the streets of ZiGong, China, his 5-foot-10-inch stature towers head and shoulders above most of those crowding the sidewalks. He’s walking tall also because he’s the only African American, as far as we know, in that city of more than three million Chinese.
Needless to say, Ossie gets attention. And he likes it.
Adults as well as children stare and giggle, some snap photographs, a few inch up to touch his skin, and many try out their English. He says Ni-Hao, and they say Howdy, Stranger.
More significantly, Ossie stands out because he is one of the first two chiropractic students to participate in Life University’s international clinic program in China. This is not a two-week field trip where students adjust hundreds, then go home chatting about their working vacation and the miracles of chiropractic. No, this is a true clinic experience, head and shoulders above what U.S.-based chiropractic education has tried before. When one set of students finishes Life’s 14-week (one full academic quarter) program, another set will take its place in well-established, professionally run clinics in hospital settings providing—not adjust-and-run chiropractic—but true continuity of care to a teeming populace that needs and appreciates it….
Life has established its innovative clinic program now in China and Costa Rica, and invitations to establish clinics and educational programs are being explored in Argentina, Chile, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Israel, Peru, Russia, Spain, Turkey and the Ukraine. Life’s Global Initiatives (LGI), as the umbrella outreach is called, is not only taking chiropractic to the world in unprecedented ways but, at least equally important, is bringing a “future world” perspective to chiropractic….
John Downes, D.C., head of the LGI globe-hopping effort, says: “The clinic and other international initiatives we’re involved with are all driven by our conviction that anything less than global is unacceptable—whether business, education, health care, sports or whatever. This is a new paradigm—not just practicing chiropractic in foreign lands—but an entire new perspective on the world. Life University is now fully operational in this paradigm….”
“Our students will learn the culture of other countries at the sidewalk level,” says Tim Gross, M.S., D.C., dean of the Life University Clinic System. “They’ll buy and cook their own food and do all of the things necessary for daily living in the foreign environment. This includes learning real language skills, not as tourists but like the people who live their whole lives there. They’ll overcome their fear of the unknown and learn to pay attention to their environment. All this will teach our students to be adaptable, flexible and creative….”
“Students who go through the Life clinic experience in China and other countries, too,” says Dr. Downes, “will never be the same.”
Nor will the world itself. Growing faster than any other nation, China is expected to surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy within 20 years. China-based factories already make 70 percent of world’s toys, 60 percent of its bicycles, half its shoes and one-third of its luggage. China brings to the competitive marketplace not only the advantage of low wages but also an impressive amount of technological know-how and manufacturing capability, thanks to American, European and Japanese companies that have set up operations there. The economic, educational, social and political implications of China’s growth will touch every American’s way of life in one way or another. And sooner than you think….
“We’re talking about the future of education, the future of healthcare and the future of world citizenship,” Dr. Downes says. We’re also talking about enriching student lives today. Here’s the flavor of Ossie’s experience so far, even before he adjusted anybody:
At lunch, there were two little boys that gathered their courage and asked me questions. You know I will do anything for the children. With this new found courage, the children along with their parents wanted to take pictures with me at just about every stop. I kind of felt special. OKAY! (LOL) I did feel special. I love the children. There were also several of the other tourists that asked to take pictures with me. Men and women…. Like George [the other Life chiropractic student] said, though, “You have touched so many people’s lives because they have never and may never in their future see a black man in person.” That meant a lot to me. Who wouldn’t want to touch the lives of the masses in a large way but requiring so little of me? For me! For my family! For my people! And for chiropractic!
That’s it. Students participating in Life’s international clinic programs are changing themselves and all those whose lives they touch. They are not only changing the face of health care. In a very tangible way they are changing the world.
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