 Anna Pearl, welcome to Exploring Chiropractic. Thanks so much for being on the show. You're very welcome. My pleasure. You recently got back from NCLC. Can you tell other students what that is? Okay, so NCLC is the National Legislative Conference of Chiropractic. Although I think they're moving towards leadership versus legislative. It takes place in Washington, D.C. once a year in the month of February. And it's just really a great opportunity for the parent organization, the American Chiropractic Association to meet with all the student chapters, the Student American Chiropractic Association. We also do legislating, which I can talk more about if you have more questions about the legislating that we did on Capitol Hill. And there's all kinds of conferences that you can sit in on as a student, as well as networking and meeting with doctors, as well as senators and congresspeople. So it's a way for students to get into the politics of the profession. Yes. So what were some of the big key legislative items? So we had three bills that we were pushing through. They're already sponsored. So the ACA does a great job of doing the legwork beforehand. So we're given bills that we're going to be trying to convince congresspeople and senators to endorse or vote yes or no on when the voting comes up. So two of the three had to deal with veterans access to chiropractic. I don't know how much you know or how much the listeners know about what a big deal it is for chiropractors to be in the VA hospitals. Yeah, it's a really big deal. A lot of schools are getting programs inside the VA so that whether it's what your clinic experience in school is at a VA for a few weeks or it's almost a residency once you graduate. Yes, it's really awesome. But right now the problem is only about 50 VA institutions are doing that. There's 100 additional ones that don't have chiropractic services. So the issue is that, sorry, they're also supposed to have each VA facility should have chiropractors there or chiropractors that they are in network, so to speak. And so there's the 100 facilities that don't have it. It's because of a lack of budgeting, right? So they're mandated to do it, but there's no funding. So the specific name of that bill is HR802. I'm looking at my notes. So this one was to kind of expand and reinforce and reiterate a bill that was already passed. And all of these bills, by the way, have bipartisan support. The representatives that endorse them. It's not a political issue. It's an issue of bettering our profession as well as veterans' access to care. So that was one of the bills. Then there was a similar bill in the Senate that we pushed through. That's S398. And that's expending once you're discharged from service. If you're inactive, you're no longer eligible for chiropractic benefits. So that's to take care of that. The families of veterans as well as the, unfortunately, like the widows and widowers of veterans. So that they also have access. And then the last one is really pertinent to us as students. And that's HR542. And that's allowing chiropractors to be part of the health service corps. That gives us the opportunity to have loan forgiveness? Yes, it does. That is hugely important. Yes, so you spent two years and the specific term is called a health professional shortage area. So we basically, you sign on to work in one of these areas for two years and you can get, it just depends on how long you're there, the specific need to what degree, how much loan forgiveness you get. Some of it's all of it. So it's pretty, pretty awesome as a student to be pushing for that though. Yeah, that one's great. There's a lot about how difficult it is for chiropractic students because the loans are so huge once we graduate. And speaking of finances, one of the reasons I was hoping to go to NCLC this year is because of the scholarships that are offered. I wasn't able to make it, but a friend of mine did and you probably met him Brent Fries. Oh yeah. Yeah. So the two of you did a couple of scholarships. Which scholarships did you apply for? So there were two that were available only to students that are SACA members as well as attended the NCLC conference, which is how many people, I mean several hundred, but how many people actually apply to those kinds of things. So I did two videos. The second scholar, so one was from standard process talking about what you want to teach your patients. And the other one was from the ACA, the American Chiropractic Association. Both were video scholarships. And I was fortunate enough, I think Brent got both of them as well. We were two people that got both of them, which was really awesome. And I was surprised. I was like, oh, you know, one of them I kind of threw together last minute, but I did some research as to why the prompt was an elevator speech to why other professions should collaborate with chiropractors. So I did some research on the numbers and things like that. And they actually responded because that one didn't have very high production value. My other one I had friends who were composers and film editors help me with that one. Okay, so you did have some help. Your first one, I think it was called Farm to Table or? Guard into Table. Guard into Table, that's right. And it really was. I watched it and I was like, wow, this is really great production value. How much time and effort did you put into that? A lot. So I wrote a script. I did storyboarding. I did the whole nine yards. But that's not to discourage other people from doing it simple because the other one I did, I set it up in this same room on an iPhone, a smartphone, and I just talked. So I was allowed to discourage people from applying. 12 people sent in videos for the standard process scholarship, which I was surprised. And then I made it to the top eight and then they did it based on voting. And then same, I don't know how many people ended up applying for the ACA one. But again, they left it up to voting. Yeah, so there is a voting component. It sounded like in the end there was also, there was some judging. Beyond the voting. I think so. A really nice guy who I got the pleasure of meeting. He, I think, got the most votes, but I don't think for the ACA. I don't think they gave him any money. So they did say something about like, yeah, your judge's score. So you send in a resume, I should say a CV, a list of contributions, what you feel you've contributed to the chiropractor profession, GPA transcript. So there is that aspect too. I think for the standard scholarship, there were eight finalists. And so there's a YouTube playlist and anybody could vote. And it was just based on the likes on the video. And then for the, for the other one, I think it was maybe four finalists or were there five? Yeah, five finalists and then three people received the scholarships. And four people received the standard process, I think. Yes. Very cool. And I hope you don't mind because I think the information was public about how much were the scholarships for? Yeah, absolutely. So the standard process was $2,500. And then to be honest, because I still haven't gotten either of my checks yet. I want to say it was 1375. It was a weird number for the ACA. But I mean, you think about it, you know, as a student, it's hard. You think shelling out the money. But for us and all the schools do a lot of really awesome fundraising. So if you're interested in going as a student for next year, $350. I mean, coming out from LA, you're on the West Coast to $350 for the hotel and the flight and the conference fee. It really isn't that bad in the scheme of things. As a student, it can get kind of hard, you know. But I came away, you know, with $3,000. So you came away in the positive. And I think that's what I think is so great about NCLC is that you do have these scholarship opportunities. Yeah. And so it can even be a benefit for you to go if you spend the time to do these scholarships, put in a little bit of effort. Because you're right. I think most people, it looked like to me, did it on their iPhones and hardly any editing and that stuff. Yes. Do you think students should apply for more scholarships? Absolutely. I'm a scholarship junkie. I always have been. I'm one of those fortunate people through a combination of financial aid and scholarships. I came out of undergrad debt free. So I've always had that mentality, like go look, they're out there. And the best ones to go for, I mean, I find in my experience are the local ones. Like if there's something to do with even just, you know, your city philanthropic groups, like for instance, the Seroptimist Club, which is a women's philanthropic, international philanthropy group. They had the Ruth White Memorial Scholarship. And I received that last year and they actually invited me to apply again this year because application rates are very low. People don't go out of their way. And so these local small ones are the ones that I tend to get. The national ones, like I applied for, there's a Tylenol $10,000 healthcare one. I looked through the list of recipients though, not a single one with a chiropractor. So I think if more students apply, I would love to see a fellow chiropractic student on that list. When one of those scholarships, because not only would that be good for that student, that's great for the profession. One that I was really interested in last year was from the Ripple Effect. And it was a pretty cool scholarship because I think it was a big chunk of money, 10, maybe even 20,000. But then you also got to go on almost a Peace Corps type trip with a group. I think it's from Welsh Allen, who does a lot of the, you know, sphigmom and emometers. The blood pressure caps, the ophthalmoscopes, all the medical equipment, and the Ripple Effect is kind of a subsidiary of theirs. And I see the same thing. Though there aren't very many scholarships for chiropractic specifically, the ones that there are, standard process, local ones at the school, hardly anybody really applies. If you could create a scholarship, if someone gave you $10,000, what would it require? I probably wouldn't do a video scholarship because as a student, it was very stressful to, I think, put in the time that I thought would be worthy of putting something online that everyone was going to see. And I mean, that's how you met me, sort of, too. So I kind of knew that I wanted to make sure that was really professional and put together. I also was an English lit major, so I loved writing. So I would, very short essay and concise. And of course, I think, you know, based on financial need, too. I think GPA, you know, there's a lot of students because in the state of California, I know in Florida and other states, you have to have a bachelor's degree. But I know in California, you don't have to have a bachelor's as long as you get your doctorate. And you have some undergraduate credits, you can still become a DC. And I know a lot of those people struggle to, well, one, adjusting to that crazy academic schedule, but also financially. And so I don't know if I would necessarily put so much emphasis on GPA, but more on merit and what they really want to do and put back into the profession. I think that's one thing, being a part of the ACA, I'm very much looking towards the future. I will be an ACA member. I'm not going to let it lapse after becoming a student. There's too much work to be done. Grades are important, but it turns out that those that get 4.0s and graduate Victorians aren't necessarily the ones that are most successful and that push the profession forward. So I think that's cool. And I might be a bit grumpy, I guess, but I had kind of a similar experience in my undergraduate. I had very many scholarships, and the ones I did get were quite small. Even though I was working 20 hours a week to try to help pay for school, I was doing extracurricular stuff 20 hours a week. And then there were other students who had family that worked for the school that already had full tuition and then they would get full tuition scholarships on. I think I too, if I had the money, I would try to pick out those who are working hard, even though their grades may not show it, are still working hard and making a huge effort. So that's pretty cool. Well, thanks for sharing your experience with the scholarships and going to NCLC. Of course. Thank you.