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Alumni turned professor: Geraldine Mulhall-Wright, Technique Department

About Dr. Mulhall-Wright

  • Owns and practices at Mulhall Family Chiropractic in Pleasant Hill, California
  • Created and teaches the Pediatric Adjusting course at Life West
  • Teaches CE Infant and Toddler Adjusting for the Practicing Chiropractor
  • CACCP (The Academy of Chiropractic Family Practice and the Council of Chiropractic Pediatrics) Certification through the ICPA (International Chiropractic Pediatrics Association)
  • Current vice president of the Life West Alumni Board

Dr. Geraldine Mulhall-Wright, DC, who has practiced chiropractic for more than 20 years and also teaches at Life West, has a simple message for parents:

The average American child is on their way to diabetes and heart disease by the age of 12. If you want to shift that, you have to do something different than the average American.

Her answer is chiropractic care. Dr. Mulhall-Wright grew up in a chiropractic family. Her dad, now a retired firefighter, made sure that she and her siblings all received consistent chiropractic care weekly.

She’s a third-generation chiropractic patient, and there are three chiropractors in her generation of the family. She has a family practice of her own and specializes in families and pediatrics. She also developed and teaches the Pediatric Adjusting course at Life West.

“It’s amazing to see kids grow and develop under chiropractic care,” she said. As they grow and hit milestones at certain points, the kids under her care tend to hit these milestones earlier rather than later. Most parents don’t know how chiropractic care can be a resource to aid with the physical, chemical and emotional traumas/exposures of birth, growth and life.

She and her husband, Scott, are also foster parents, and they specialize in infant care. They have always believed that it takes a village to raise a child. “That’s been an amazing journey,” Dr. Mulhall-Wright said. A foster child can stay anywhere from one week to six months or more. Afterward, there are always emotions to process. But the act of taking in and caring for a child who has faced trauma at a very young age has given her a way to Give, Do, Love and Serve – a core part of the Life West mission. “Be a part of the village that you believe in,” Dr. Mulhall-Wright urges.

Whether it’s through her chiropractic practice or volunteer work or teaching, she sees a way to be part of the village.

But in her early 20s, Dr. Mulhall-Wright couldn’t see a clear path. When Dr. Jerry Behymer, DC, her chiropractor in Lafayette, California, since she was 8 years old, asked if she ever thought about being a chiropractor, she responded: “I don’t think I have the DNA for it.” Dr. Behymer told her there were entire colleges full of people who embraced the chiropractic philosophy, and they would teach her what she needed to know. That led to Life West (and he also later introduced her to her to husband).

What has life at Life West been like?

Her family was the only family under chiropractic care that she knew of as a child. However, the impact of chiropractic on her life has been huge. “The first time I visited Life West, I went home and told my father that there was an entire group of people who thought the way we did,” Dr. Mulhall-Wright said about choosing to attend Life West as a student.

“You will get out of it what you put into it,” she said. “If you hit a wall, reach out, get help and move on, because you can do it. Pay attention in school and you can make it happen.”

Finding a way through the obstacles guides her as a teacher, too.

“One of the things that I really enjoy about teaching is that these students are making me a better doctor,” she said. “They ask questions in a way I have not thought about. I may not consciously remember why I do something. They ask a question and it makes me think, ‘Let me check and see what’s true or not about the way I am practicing.’ That’s also helped me be a more compassionate doctor.”

As a graduate and now a teacher at Life West, Dr. Mulhall-Wright is certainly getting something out of the effort she is putting into this community. She’s also joined the President’s Circle, a group of committed donors who help support the college’s mission to spread chiropractic.

“When I left school, I realized how much more there is to know. I got back to school and saw the quality of the school, I saw my teachers and mentors were still here, and I thought it feels like coming home.”

“My husband and I believe in putting our money where our passion is,” she added. “I’m so blessed to be part of this community. I never thought I would feel so strongly about the team here. The people who continue to move the college forward are incredible!”

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