Why I Went Back to School When I Was Already a Doctor

Why I Went Back to School When I Was Already a Doctor

In 2024, I went back to school.

I was already a Doctor of Chiropractic. I had graduated from Life University in 2012, built a human practice, and spent years caring for patients.

I was also a practice owner and a mother raising two young daughters.

From the outside, it may have seemed as though my education should have been finished.

But a part of my calling was still waiting for me.

Long before becoming a chiropractor, I spent three years of undergraduate school volunteering in a mixed-animal veterinary clinic. I worked alongside nine veterinarians, assisting with small animals, horses, cattle, surgeries, and some of the most difficult moments in an animal’s life.

I loved working with animals, but my professional path eventually led me toward human chiropractic.

For years, those two parts of me remained separate:

The woman who loved caring for animals.

And the chiropractor who understood the power of restoring movement and nervous-system function.

Eventually, I realized they didn’t have to remain separate.

At the time, my life was already full. I was rebuilding parts of my practice, managing responsibilities at home, and navigating the exhaustion that comes from caring for everyone else.

It would have been easy to tell myself that I had missed my opportunity.

Instead, I enrolled in the 240-hour Animal Chiropractic Education Source program.

Returning to the student role was humbling.

I had to study again, travel, practice unfamiliar skills, and accept that being experienced in human chiropractic did not automatically make me an expert in adjusting animals.

I completed the program in four intense months and went on to earn my AVCA certification. I continued my education through food-animal adjusting certification and advanced canine and equine training.

I didn’t return to school because my first chiropractic education had been insufficient.

I returned because my calling had expanded.

I wanted to bring chiropractic care to dogs struggling to walk, cats whose behavior suggested discomfort, horses working with athletes, and livestock whose mobility and function deserved support too.

Going back to school changed far more than the services I offered.

It opened an entirely new chapter of my career—one that would eventually lead to farm calls, professional leadership, research questions, national interviews, and animals whose lives changed through chiropractic care.

Already being a doctor didn’t mean I was finished becoming who I was meant to be.

Sometimes we treat our education, career, or identity as though it must remain fixed once we reach a certain point.

But growth doesn’t ask whether we already have a title.

It asks whether we are willing to become a beginner again.

Going back to school required time, work, humility, and courage.

But it allowed two lifelong parts of me—the animal lover and the chiropractor—to finally become one.