Harnessing the Power of Professional Partnerships: Dr. Irum Tahir on Chiropractic Care for Pregnant Women and Pediatric Health
Jun 10, 2024
Activator Methods
What if your chiropractic practice could flourish by simply fostering the right professional relationships? Join us in this compelling episode as we sit down with Dr. Irum Tahir, a distinguished chiropractor with successful practices in both upstate New York and Washington DC. Dr. Tahir shares her incredible journey and reveals the transformative power of systems and partnerships with OBGYNs and other medical professionals. We discuss the unique benefits of chiropractic care for pregnant women and families, highlighting how these services can significantly enhance the health and well-being of both mothers and their babies. Plus, Dr. Tahir provides invaluable advice for fellow chiropractors looking to boost patient referrals and practice success through collaborative efforts with medical doctors.
But that's not all—Dr. Tahir also delves into her passion for pediatric care and professional coaching. Discover how she educates her audience on pediatric health and pregnancy through her active social media presence on Instagram and Facebook. Learn about her consulting company, Ignite the Spark (ignite-spark.com), which aims to rejuvenate healthcare providers and combat burnout, alongside her parent company, High Point Consulting, which focuses on fostering innovation within the medical community. This episode is packed with Dr. Tahir’s expert insights and inspiring stories, making it an essential listen for anyone in the chiropractic profession or healthcare industry.
What if your chiropractic practice could flourish by simply fostering the right professional relationships? Join us in this compelling episode as we sit down with Dr. Irum Tahir, a distinguished chiropractor with successful practices in both upstate New York and Washington DC. Dr. Tahir shares her incredible journey and reveals the transformative power of systems and partnerships with OBGYNs and other medical professionals. We discuss the unique benefits of chiropractic care for pregnant women and families, highlighting how these services can significantly enhance the health and well-being of both mothers and their babies. Plus, Dr. Tahir provides invaluable advice for fellow chiropractors looking to boost patient referrals and practice success through collaborative efforts with medical doctors.
But that's not all—Dr. Tahir also delves into her passion for pediatric care and professional coaching. Discover how she educates her audience on pediatric health and pregnancy through her active social media presence on Instagram and Facebook. Learn about her consulting company, Ignite the Spark (ignite-spark.com), which aims to rejuvenate healthcare providers and combat burnout, alongside her parent company, High Point Consulting, which focuses on fostering innovation within the medical community. This episode is packed with Dr. Tahir’s expert insights and inspiring stories, making it an essential listen for anyone in the chiropractic profession or healthcare industry.
Hello, I'm Dr Arlen Foer, the chairman and founder of Activator Methods International, and welcome to our podcast, activate your Practice, and today we have a real star in my book. It's Dr Irim Tahir, and she has one of the nicest, biggest practices, and I first learned about her in a TED Talk some seven years ago and I was impressed by her and so I wanted to get her on the podcast to find out how she became so successful and tell me where your location is.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so my practice is in upstate New York but I actually live in the Washington DC area, so I have that practice set up where I can actually run it from anywhere, which I'm very grateful for. So it gets systems, systems, systems, you know which. We'll probably go into it a little bit, but I'm in upstate New York and then I'm now in the Washington DC area to have another location there.
Speaker 1:
How do you run things with systems? It intrigues me.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so you know, I think most chiropractors and most entrepreneurs intrigues me. Yeah, so you know, I think most chiropractors and most entrepreneurs they're enmeshed in the practice, right. So they're like in there, you know, even if you think of like a baker, they're in there baking the bread, baking the bread. Baking the bread and that is part of why we got into it is chiropractic and working with our patients. But it's really, I think, that true success and freedom comes from when you're sitting more on top of the business and you can still, of course, be doing the daily adjustments, but those systems that you do put into place and making sure that everyone's doing things the same way, regardless of who is there, is, I think, what's key.
Speaker 1:
Well, I know you have a kind of an unusual practice. It, I guess, specializes, and so I want to know about that.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my practice. We do see the general population, but we see a ton of pregnant women and babies and wellness type of families you know too. So it's a wellness-based practice. We do, you know, work with a lot of OBGYNs and midwives and doulas in the area. So we've really built a name for ourselves and I created a whole system of working with OBGYNs and medical doctors to be able to get them to understand what it is we do with chiropractic care and I'm really that's like my passion, you know, my passion is really the pregnant women in practice. So when I'm working with our moms, or even postpartum, those are the moms that need the most help because oftentimes they're told by the medical world there's nothing that can be done for you. You just have to wait it out, you just have to live with it. No, it doesn't need to be that way.
Speaker 1:
But that's where I think you have majored is in this area and how did you get started at?
Speaker 2:
You know, I think it started with having real empathy for pregnant moms because I feel like they go through so much. You know they're carrying life within them and that life is so important and it's so crucial and what happens to the mom does affect that life, and so I started thinking about it is that if we can impact the pregnant mom through chiropractic care, it will change the trajectory of that person's life where that, when they're born into this world, how they're born into this world, and so it can either be a very difficult, laborious, challenging labor and delivery or it can be easy and smooth and comfortable, and you know that really comes into play with working with the pregnant moms. So that's really like you know, one of my biggest passions is working with pregnant moms, along with, you know, so many other things.
Speaker 1:
You coach, you know chiropractors for years. Yeah, Uh, what's the number one main issue that you see most often in chiropractic practices and how can it be corrected?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so I've been coaching chiropractors for the last 12 years and um while working within my own practice. So I I think one of one of the things that really sets me apart is I'm one of the few chiropractors that's a coach that's still in practice and is in the weeds and knows what's going on with the day-to-day challenges that we experience every day. And I think that one of the biggest things that I've seen people make mistakes with is that they actually don't work with medical doctors or OBGYNs. You know, that's where all the sick people are and there's such a huge opportunity for chiropractors to work with medical doctors and OBGYNs and other healthcare providers to be able to get those referral sources in. But I think the chiropractors they're just trying to do it all themselves, you know, and if they work these collaborative relationships, it makes such a big difference.
Speaker 1:
Tell me how you first got somebody in the OBGYN world to work with you.
Speaker 2:
Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, so I had. I was just out of school and I, um, I said to myself you know, I really love working with pregnant moms and I wish I could work with OBGYNs, but it just seemed like this huge daunting, like very difficult thing, Um, and it actually started out with a patient. A patient that I had was a nurse practitioner at a large OB practice and she is like a holistic kind of a nurse practitioner, but she worked with this medical OBGYN and she was like you need to know about Dr Tahir, that's who you need to start sending pregnant moms to, because I educated that patient and she went and educated that OB and then she was able to get me into working with the OB and explaining chiropractic and got my foot in the door. And then when I started working with her 15 years ago, I had been continually working with different OBs and MDs and then I finally built the whole system around it.
Speaker 1:
Did you build a system to getting and to see OBGYNs?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, getting in front of them. They're key decision makers. So getting in front of them, they're key decision makers. So getting in front of them and getting a luncheon scheduled, getting in front of them and helping them understand what it is we do with chiropractic care in the first place, you know, and then I've expanded out to medical doctors too.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that was probably the biggest thing is, they just didn't know what the directors did.
Speaker 2:
They didn't know and there's no options, and they can't give medicine or they can't give injections to these pregnant moms. So what's the option they're like? Well, you just have to live with that. You know, after nine months it'll be over.
Speaker 1:
You know I've done five podcast people here this morning and they're all talking about your limiting beliefs and I think that's what you have down here. How does that play into ourselves? How do we limit ourselves?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so you know our limiting beliefs.
Speaker 2:
You know we started off talking about my TED Talk and I'm very grateful because the TED Talks it's become very, very popular and it is on how our limiting beliefs hold us back.
Speaker 2:
So these limiting beliefs are handed down to us from generations and generations, you know, and back in the day it was really rough to be able to survive in this world. You know, even if you think about our grandparents' generation, they went through war, went through famine, went through destruction, went through so many different things, and that's not to say that that's not happening this day and age. But they handed down some of these limiting and negative thought patterns that we actually operate our life from and we don't know that they exist until we have someone go in and say, hey, this is actually a limiting belief that you've been handed down from generation to generation. So it could be around money, it could be around success, it could be around wealth, it could be relationships, a marriage, all sorts of different things. And one of the things we do with our coaching clients is we work with those limiting beliefs and a very specific technique called Psyche K that helps to eliminate those limiting beliefs, to stop the barriers for their success.
Speaker 1:
Tell me about that again. What was the word Psyche?
Speaker 2:
Psyche K, psyche K, yeah, so actually uses muscle testing to be able to identify the limiting beliefs within the subconscious mind. Yes, it's very cool. So let's just say. You came to me and you said well, you have everything, arlen, so I don't know, you probably don't need anything else.
Speaker 1:
Well, yes, I do. By the way, my wife said I'm really getting much better at podcasting and I said why? And she says you're shutting up and I'm learning yeah, the person that comes in here, I have the benefit of listening to them and like I didn't know what this was.
Speaker 2:
Yes, okay. So basically, if you had a goal that you wanted, let's just make it up. Let's just say it was a health goal. Okay, you goal that you wanted? Let's just make it up. Let's just say it was a health goal. Okay, you have a certain goal in your mind that you want to achieve.
Speaker 2:
I will test you using this technique to see if you actually even believe you can do it. Now, consciously, you may say, yes, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it, I want to do it. But subconsciously, that's what keeps holding us back, because it may not be normal for us. That goal may not be something that we're familiar with, because we're operating with this old operating system from our grandparents and parents and society and teachers and preachers, and that's who's told us, our belief system. And so my job is to work with you and be able to find out where the weakness is, because that limitation is actually weakening you.
Speaker 2:
That's why the muscle testing helps us gauge that, and then, once we find that weakness, then I can actually use. It's really cool because it's almost like a chiro. It's kind of like, almost like how chiropractic works. We use the body to get to the mind and we use different postures to get the person into a whole brain state and then get their subconscious in line with their conscious goals. So let's just say someone had a practice goal of I want to make a million dollars. But if in your mind you don't actually believe that subconscious mind, you're never going to get there.
Speaker 2:
Exactly it's always going to be the same thing over and over again, and it's just going to be daunting and hard.
Speaker 1:
Well, you know, I have interviewed practice management people and the successful practice management people. All of a sudden, it hit me, they're only working with the 20% successful practitioners.
Speaker 2:
Exactly.
Speaker 1:
There's 80% out there that they don't work with because they won't change Exactly, and that's a pretty big thing when you find out that there's people that don't want to change.
Speaker 2:
Yep Exactly, can you?
Speaker 1:
change that?
Speaker 2:
They have to be coachable. So you know, for me we don't actually take on everybody that we coach. You know, I have a conversation first to see are they coachable, like are they going to be open and receptive, to want to change? But sometimes there's things that they've learned that prevent them from changing. So that's where our goal is to start breaking that down to help them achieve their goals.
Speaker 1:
That can be familial, it can be, you know, from when they're babies.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:
Break that yeah To break that cycle.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So if you tell you know your child, you're not going to amount to anything, You're not going to be successful, you can't do this. That's going to stick in their mind as they grow into an adult. It's all how we speak to our children and our loved ones.
Speaker 1:
You know, I came from a big farm family and the old Germans always bought a farm for every kid, and so when I told my grandfather I wanted to be a chiropractor, it was destroying to him, because he said, no, we already have a year-life plan for you. And I said, well, not what I'm going to do. But I had an uncle that was in our family, a weirdo because he was an interior decorator. And can you imagine this? Well, farmers, and here's an interior decorator. But he took me under his wing and said it's okay that you're not a farmer, and he gave me the support that I needed to go through university and then chiropractic college.
Speaker 2:
Oh, that just gives me chills. What a great story.
Speaker 1:
Yes, sometimes there's a person in your life that can change it, that can change it.
Speaker 2:
Yes, yes, but he was out of that familial pattern, yes. And then look at what you've created because of your uncle. Look at what you've created for our profession and for society.
Speaker 1:
But he gave me that vision to do it, and so oh, I love that story.
Speaker 2:
I didn't know that.
Speaker 1:
What technique do you use in your practice?
Speaker 2:
So we actually do use some activator as well. So with the pregnant moms, I've had pregnant moms and then also I'm moving into postpartum. You know we use the activator sometimes for areas that we are not able to access, maybe sensitive, uncomfortable. So we do use the activator quite a bit as well. Quite a bit as well we also because it is so precise and it's very specific and you can really get to like specific areas with it, you know, and safe and very safe, exactly so.
Speaker 2:
We use that, of course, with our geriatric population, some of our children, especially moms. Sometimes they're nervous about their kids getting adjusted, so it's a really great tool that I'm so grateful that you created. And then we also use pelvic blocking, and actually in my talk later this weekend I'm going to be going over some simple pelvic blocking techniques that people can use. It doesn't have to be a whole big thing, but it's simple, easy. You know things that they can use to get some powerful results. And then we of course, use Drop, diversified. We have Webster Technique and some little bit of soft tissue.
Speaker 1:
Sure, you know there's a lot of different colleges now that are having specific pediatric courses. Yeah, and are you seeing people come out with that? Is that good?
Speaker 2:
I am seeing that I primarily do work with the ICPA. You know all of my work when I teach how to work with the OBGYNs and the midwives and pregnancy has all been gone through the ICPA because they do see that in like the main certifying body. So but there are other good courses too. But I think that at the bare minimum people definitely should get you know through the ICPA, the Webster certification. I love that.
Speaker 1:
How do people get a hold of you if they want to? You know, learn how to take care of the pediatric world.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah. So whether they want to learn more about the pediatrics and the pregnancy, or they want to learn more about the coaching, I am on Instagram, so it's just Dr Iram Taghir, and then I'm on Facebook, too, dr Iram Tagir, so I have one of those names that can't really be forgotten, I guess, and then we have a website too of course, tell the name for them, because somebody might not know how. Sure, yes. So my first name is I-R-U-M Iram Yep, and then T-A-H-I-R Tahir.
Speaker 1:
Yep, and then.
Speaker 2:
T-A-H-I-R. Tahir. Yes, and then we have a website too, which is wwwignite-sparkcom, and we called our consulting company. It's part of a. We have a parent company called High Point Consulting. But Ignite the Spark is really about sparking something in our providers, in our doctors. You know so many of us, I'm sure you've seen this you know chiropractors. We do get burnt out. We get kind of like into this thing, like over and over again, same problems. So Ignite the Spark is really moving people out of what they're used to, into doing something different and creating a spark within.
Speaker 1:
Well, I can't thank you enough. You know we're at Parker here and we've had several people today that we're interviewing and we can get them all at one place. That's fabulous, and so thank you for taking time, because I know you're busy, for just coming in and being on the Activate your Practice podcast.
Speaker 2:
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure.
