Orofino Spine Center under new ownership
New owner of the
Orofino
Spine
Center,
Dr. Jeffrey Hartshorn (pictured), arrived in Orofino March 1 with his wife
Wendy, daughter Kylie, 3½, and son Hunter. “He was a week old when we moved down
here,” Hartshorn said, “so he’s practically a native.”
They moved here from Sitka, AK where Hartshorn was an associate in a chiropractic practice.
Originally a computer science major, a snowboarding injury during the final semester of his program changed Hartshorn’s career direction. His subsequent recovery with the help of a chiropractor convinced him to explore chiropractic further.
He wanted a small business in a professional setting that would be people oriented. Chiropractic fit those criteria.
In addition to his own recovery, Hartshorn had seen his father suffer from chronic back problems. Chiropractic treatment “kinda kept him moving through all his working years,” Hartshorn said.
Hartshorn attended BYU Hawaii in Oahu and Utah Valley State College in Orem, UT for his undergraduate studies. He says he attended the university in Hawaii until “I ran out of money,” and would transfer to the Utah school while he saved money to return to Hawaii.
His grandfather was Dean of Religion at BYU and suggested BYU Hawaii, considered the most culturally diverse campus in the world. Roughly 2400 students from 70 different nations study there.
Following the decision to switch to chiropractic, Hartshorn began his graduate studies at Texas Chiropractic College in Pasadena, TX east of Houston. While there he met Wendy at a singles group at church. Three months later the two were married.
Chiropractic training includes four years of graduate school, followed by a year of internship. Hartshorn’s training included two medical rotations, one with an orthopedic surgeon, one with a neurosurgeon. He has observed hundreds of surgeries including back, carpal tunnel and operations on other extremities. Texas Chiropractic is one of two colleges nationwide that include medical rotations, a major consideration in his decision to study there.
There is a broad spectrum of chiropractic philosophy, according to Hartshorn. He is a muscular skeletal specialist, meaning he focuses on the muscles, joints and nerves. Besides back problems, he treats athletic injuries, pregnant and post-partum women, tennis elbow, strains and sprains.
His focus is on stretching, muscle work and patient education. “What makes my practice unique,” he says, “is that I collaborate quite closely with the medical profession.”
In Alaska, Hartshorn was the first chiropractor to have medical staff privileges at SEARHC, the South East Alaska Regional Health Consortium that serves the health interests of Native people.
When Hartshorn was a child the family spent a year in Japan while his father practiced law there. They moved to Michigan from there, spent a year in Canada and finally lived in Houston for most of his growing up years.
The big city, he said is great for education, but not a good place for a family. With the purchase of the Orofino Spine Center, he and Wendy have settled in for the long term, believing that Orofino is a great place to raise a family.