It goes almost unquestioned in business culture that a consistent delivery of a consistent product is one of the primary hallmarks of a successful business plan. We can see how successful this model is quite clearly: McDonald’s was built on the premise of delivery the same McDonald’s experience in every store in the world. Wherever you go, it’s always the same quality of food, it tastes the same, it looks the same, it’s delivered in the same fashion. It works because of the predictability of it; you know that if you like a meal at McDonald’s, you’ll enjoy what you get at all of them, because it’s the same experience.

It’s no different within healthcare in general or chiropractic specifically; there is a strong impetus for healthcare practitioners to be able to deliver the same service to every patient or client every time. On the surface, it certainly seems like a wise decision: you can rest assured that if you’re delivering the same service every time, patients who have the condition you’re trained to treat will get better in a predictable fashion. It’s just good business sense.

As an artist as well as a healer, I have a few questions and qualms about this assumption, however. The gist of my questions comes down to this: how much do I want to ensure for myself that I get the same experience over and over again? My answer is unequivocally no. I can think of a few circumstances where I want to know exactly what kind of experience I want to have in advance and know that I’ll get it exactly, but for the most part, I recognize that desire within myself as being entirely based on my fear of the unknown.

Is the guarantee of a predictable experience worth the loss of variety?