Nicholas Donaldson
There is a new name printed beneath Dr. Jeremy McGuire’s on the door of the Fort Frances Chiropractic Centre–and it’s one people here already should be familiar with.
Dr. Cody Caul has become the newest addition to the office, and having grown up in the area has made it very easy to get right into his work.
“It’s nice to be recognized a little bit and it makes it easier to come back, especially as the new guy,” Caul told the Times.
“It’s nice treating in the area because the small town is what I’ve always really liked,” he added.
Caul said he’s received a lot of support so far–even from those a little leery about trying the new guy.
“It’s nice to be a local guy because, for whatever reason, they trust you more,” he noted.
Caul did a short externship this spring in Fort Frances as part of his schooling, then officially began on Aug. 1.
This follows a long history with the office and with Dr. McGuire.
“I grew up on a horse ranch so I got myself injured a lot and found myself walking through these doors pretty consistently,” Caul recounted.
He said he began to grow interested in chiropractic care the more he was in the office, and always knew that he wanted to do something in health care.
“Dr. McGuire has been a mentor of mine since high school when I started showing some interest in the profession,” Caul noted.
“Since the time I decided I wanted to become a chiropractor, I had hoped to be able to come back here,” he admitted.
After high school, Caul attended Lakehead University in Thunder Bay for his Honours Bachelor’s degree in kinesiology, then moved on to the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in Toronto, where he received his doctorate.
While at school in Toronto, he worked for six months in a low socio-economic clinic in downtown Toronto and for four months in a more family-oriented one attached to the college.
“It was a great experience because I got to work with people you really never run into in a smaller community,” Caul said, mentioning working with everyone from Syrian refugees to elite athletes.
But Caul said the decision to come back here to work was easy to make–and Dr. McGuire has been very happy to have him.
“This is fantastic,” Dr. McGuire enthused. “We’ve been waiting eight years for this young man.”
He noted that since construction started on New Gold’s mine north of Barwick, his office has had a difficult time keeping up with the large number of patients.
“Having this addition, we might actually get some holidays again,” he laughed.
Dr. McGuire noted he initially considered getting an associate from out of the area but decided to wait for Caul to finish school, preferring to have a “hometown boy” to come back to the area and help out.
“Really, the reason I’ve been so busy in the past week or so is because I’ve been handling the overflow from Dr. McGuire,” Caul remarked.
He explained that handling the overflow gives himself plenty of extra work to do, which he is happy with as gets himself established.
In fact, helping patients who otherwise would be turned away is a source of pride for Caul.
He said one of the most difficult things in health care is getting people to seek that care, so it is very frustrating when those seeking care cannot get it because it is not available.
“I just want to fill that availability and make sure people who want care can get care,” Caul stressed.
“It’s just making sure someone has somewhere to go when they need help.”
Going along with that is changing the perception around chiropractors so potential patients realize all the things they can help with and seek them out for care.
“A lot of people just think of us as spine-setters or bone-crackers, but we work with everything in the neuro-muscular-skeletal system,” Caul explained.
He said people come in with numbness, tingling, pain, or just for maintenance and preventive care.
Caul also has done a lot of work with athletes. While in Toronto, he interacted with Donovan Bailey and team trainers with both the Toronto Maple Leafs and Hamilton Tiger Cats.
“People may assume that they are a regular M.D. but it is very common for those high-level teams to work with chiropractors,” he noted.
“We’re not just here to fix little old ladies’ backs who have slipped on the ice-though we are good for that, as well-but we’re also so much more than that,” Caul said.
