From Ember to Flaim: An Introduction to Dr. Flaim

Hello! My name is Dr. Natalie Flaim and I am the newest addition to Dr. Supers house of health. I will be starting on June 12th and I could not be more excited to be a part of this team. This blog post will focus on my back story including on how I chose to get into chiropractic and to how I came to accept this amazing job opportunity.  

I grew up in Ephrata, Lancaster County with a big family of six other siblings. I had always known I wanted to go into the medical field since I was five years old. From then until my junior year of college, I had my sights set on becoming a psychiatrist. I loved talking to people and being the person who someone could go to when they’re feeling overwhelmed or need advice. In return, it seemed as if people who needed that freedom to just talk gravitated towards me and I loved being the person they could count on to listen to them. During college, I realized that I would have to take a whole lot of chemistry and calculus to make my dream a reality. This made me start to rethink my career path.  

I met Dr. Super in undergrad at Kutztown University on the women’s rugby team.  I was in between sports, the track & field coach wasn’t returning any of my emails, and I was anxious to become part of a sports team again. One fateful club fair later and I found the stand for the women’s rugby football club. It took me three tries to gather up the courage to sign up (the team chose the three biggest girls on the team to man the table and I thought I was way too small to play). They assured me I wouldn’t be the smallest on the team, so I went to a practice, and they were right. I have never shied away from a physical challenge. I fell in love with the sport and how well the team had each other's back on and off the field. Dr. Super really took me under her wings on the field and showed me the ins and outs of the rugby position she was leaving behind and I would be taking over. From then on, I have considered her a part of my family. Call it what you wish, but I consider it fate that the track & field coach never got back to me leading me to go to that club fair and joining a team where it would lead me to make such a true connection.  

Unfortunately, I only got to play one season with her before she graduated and moved to Iowa to begin her journey of chiropractic. She was asking me for the next three years to come out and visit her and her husband Ben in Iowa. I finally did the summer before my senior year of college. I toured the school for the sole reason that they would pay for my flight to Iowa (don’t worry, it worked out in their favor in the end). The whole trip, I was telling them how I was thinking of not doing anything with psychology and how I thought sitting in a room with someone to talk to for an hour didn’t seem like something I could do for the rest of my life. To me, I wanted to do more for someone that would help them physically but also mentally. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge advocate for mental health and therapy and taking care of your mental well-being. I just wanted to do more. And with that, Dr. Super introduced me to chiropractic and how interconnected chiropractic and mental health are with each other. It’s the perfect balance of physicality I was looking for with some focus on mental health as well. During the rest of that trip to Iowa, I knew this was going to change the course of my life.  

One year later, I was all moved into my new apartment in Davenport, Iowa waiting for my first class to start. Chiropractic school was the best and worst time of my life, and no one can really prepare you for how gut-wrenching it will be. The late nights on campus studying with my friends until 1-2am, the hundreds of gallons I consumed in coffee, sometimes needing a quiet place to just sit in cry because you had one exam today and you have two tomorrow and one the day after that. Having to take 8-10 finals during final exam week in a four-day period. But my time there will be something I will never forget. It shaped who I am today and the kind of doctor I want to be. 

I graduated from Palmer College of Chiropractic in February 2022. While at Palmer, and like I stated earlier, I changed my personal definition of what a good doctor is about a hundred times. I finally settled on someone who is attentive to the physical and emotional needs of their patients, and who is understanding and patient enough to work through all ailments one might come with. Suffering with mental health issues myself, I feel it’s very important and will be making that one of my main focuses throughout my personal chiropractic career. I am also still an athlete and I continue to play rugby (and hopefully will for a couple more years), so I also focus on sports injury and rehabilitation techniques along with general health and wellness. What helped me shape my belief in what makes a great doctor were the philosophy classes that both Dr. Super and I had to take in school. We were taught the three causes of spinal subluxation: Thoughts, Traumas, and Toxins. Essentially, what you think, what you put into your body and physical or mental traumas that you may have endured in life all play a major role in the dysfunction that can occur within one’s body. That is why I do what I do. I want to find the dysfunction that is occurring in the body and heal the area and fix the problem you have so you can go and maintain your health and wellness with as little dysfunction as possible. 

I have been working the past year in Dorchester, Massachusetts at a personal injury office that focused on people who have been in car accidents. Along with giving them chiropractic treatment, I have also done passive and active therapies on every single patient I had. I range in different techniques based on what my patient responded best to, wanted/required/asked for, or what the body told me it needed. It was a great opportunity, but I wasn’t practicing how I wanted to. Instead of seeing patients who cared about their health and wellness and wanted to seek holistic treatment for their ailments, I was only seeing people who were in pain, yes, but were only there because it was required by their car insurances. It was a mentally and physically draining job and it was hard to remember my passion for the profession just from the sheer volume of patients. It was a good job for what it was, and it did teach me a lot about finding the problem area and ruling out serious injury and knowing what I can do for a patient. That being said, I knew it was not something I could not do long term. I gave myself a max of three years to work there. Thankfully, a golden opportunity came earlier than that! Dr. Super asked me if there was any way she could convince me to move back to Pennsylvania to work with her and all I responded with was “Working for/with you would be the ideal working situation.” After driving back into the area to help her with an Adjust-a-Thon she was hosting during the weekend, I went to work on Monday and handed in my three months' notice at my job in Boston.  

To summarize, my personal philosophy is to look at all aspects of a patient's life to find the culprit of a specific dysfunction and what can be contributing to it in a negative feedback loop. Physically, mentally and emotionally. It is all relevant and it is all important. My goal is to align my patients so they can heal from within and clear the passageway from the brain to the body to ensure clear communication. Only with clear communication between the brain and the body can we allow the body to heal itself like it is made to do. I am here to listen to you and your body and treat it how it tells me it wants to be treated. 

I look forward to meeting many of you within the office and I am excited to serve the people of Berks County! 

Feel well and do good, 

ADIO 

Dr. Natalie Flaim