Jeff Langmaid's great-grandfather graduated from Palmer Chiropractic in the 1920s, but the family legacy lay dormant until Jeff's father injured his back. A local Rhode Island chiropractor helped his father and called Palmer on Jeff's behalf, steering him away from his childhood dream of orthopedic surgery and toward his family's chiropractic roots.
What initially got you interested in chiropractic? Two things. I'll go out of linear order. My great-grandfather was a chiropractor who graduated in the 1920s from Palmer when B.J. was still teaching. So I have some artifacts and things like that, which are super cool. So I had a really long history, but that legacy was broken after my great-grandfather. That was broken until me. And how that came to fruition was I wanted to be an endoscopic knee surgeon. This is how you can tell you're a geek in 5th grade when your presentation is around endoscopy. Endoscopic knee surgery. As time went on though, I'm in college and I'm like, man, staring down a 6mm tube my whole life is not exactly inspiring. So I'm like, but what else am I gonna do? Long story short, my father hurts his back. Classic chiropractic story. Hurts his back, had seen chiropractors on and off throughout his life. Hurts his back, gets relief, gets back to work feeling great and says, you gotta meet this guy. I'm a chiropractor in Rhode Island, which is where I grew up. I go back over Christmas break and I meet the chiropractor and first words, great to meet you. Have you ever thought about being a chiropractor? I said, I have not. He said, hold on one second. This is the true story. Picks up the phone and calls Palmer because he was the alumni president for Palmer in the state of Rhode Island.
