Skip to main content

Dr. Richard Keim, D.C.

Dr. Richard Keim, D.C.

I am Dr. Richard Keim, it may sound funny, but I often say I was born to be a chiropractor. I knew when I was three years old that I wanted to be a doctor so I could help my grandmother live forever. Our family chiropractor was the only doctor I knew, and that was the only kind of doctor I knew to be. That changed while I was in college, as a couple of my friends who were studying to be psychiatrists tried to convince me that I should be a medical doctor. I wavered, yet there was always in the back of my mind the belief that it was the allopathic medical system that resulted in the death of my grandpa while I was in high school. He had been rushed to the hospital for what was later diagnosed as a gall bladder attack, unfortunately however, he was misdiagnosed and treated for the wrong thing and he never left the hospital alive. I didn’t want to be that kind of doctor, and I’m glad I’m not. Prescription drugs have become the leading cause of death in America, I didn’t want to participate in the chance of causing any of the grief I experienced when I lost my grandpa.

My schooling took me from Canada to Portland, Oregon where, I received my Doctor of Chiropractic degree from Western States Chiropractic College in 1994. I was enjoying some down time after finishing years of schooling when my cousin in Eugene, OR began to press me to interview with her chiropractor, Dr. Sharell Tracy. Being a peacemaker, I agreed to an interview and really hadn’t decided where I wanted to practice when I got a call from Dr. Tracy. There was an emergency in her family, and would I help her out while she was out of the office? I had a taste of practicing and when she came back, I stayed.
My Grandma didn’t live forever, but I did get to treat her and she lived to a ripe old age of 98. I still believe I was born to be a chiropractor, and my profession allows me to be in the forefront of medical care. Years before it was popular, we were instructing patients in nutrition, healthy life style, positive mental attitude, and treating with energy medicine, as well as adjusting the spine and extremities. I like hearing my patients say “I always come here first because you will fix me and not give me pain pills to mask the symptoms, and I know you will send me to my M.D. if I need to go.”
I love the instant results of a good adjustment, seeing patients walk in with pain and walk out without it. It’s difficult to say what I like to treat best, headaches, low back pain, allergies, neck pain. Or who I like to treat best; babies, kids, moms, dads, or grandmas. But I love what I do and one of my most gratifying experiences was when I had the pleasure of giving my baby son his first adjustment. He was fussing and crying, and within minutes of the adjustment, fell into a peaceful sleep. There are so many gratifying experiences that they are too numerous to recount.