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With a single vision, an ordinary man or woman can accomplish extraordinary things. Brent McNabb, D.C., proves this statement to be true. In his lifetime—which is far from over—he has followed a simple path. He went to college and graduate school, volunteered for a stint with the Peace Corps in Brazil, returned to the states for chiropractic college and started a foundation for chiropractic education back in Brazil. This is McNabb’s journey.

A “product of the idealism of the 1960s,” Brent McNabb felt a calling to help those in need after completing his undergraduate studies at California State University in 1972. How and where he would do this, however, he did not know. A well-timed invitation to join the Peace Corps (it arrived on the last day of final exams) sent him packing for Brazil.

While working for the Peace Corps, a visit from Mom—a recently retired chiropractor—would forever alter the trajectory of not only McNabb’s own future, but the future of the then non-existent chiropractic movement in Brazil.

Today, with two U.S.-accredited Brazilian universities boasting more than 700 combined chiropractic students and a Brazilian Chiropractic Association with a roster of more than 800 members (including 300 practicing DCs), those in the know thank the modest McNabb for helping to create a lasting and self-sustaining legacy of chiropractic learning in a country whose people and spirit he reveres.

McNabb himself thanks the series of fortuitous events, along with good friends, (and most especially his mom), for sparking in him the desire to become a chiropractor himself, and for initiating the movement he spearheaded to bring the chiropractic profession to Brazil.

“Brent is one of those people who is completely selfless and devoted and has no ego,” says the Secretary General of the World Federation of Chiropractic, David Chapman Smith. “In all groups you look for someone who’s a quiet leader who gets things done, and he’s entirely like that.”

When the young McNabb first landed in Brazil, there was no practice of chiropractic in all of Brazil—South America’s largest and most populated country—a melting-pot of diverse populace with lush and equally diverse landscapes and cultures.

McNabb spent his two Peace Corps years (in the early 70s) working on health and community development, where he met soon-to-be lifelong friends and colleagues, native Brazilian Dr. Sira Borges (M.D.) and fellow recent college grad and Peace Corps volunteer (and eventual business partner and fellow chiropractor) Ross Royster.

Toward the end of the two-year stint, Betty McNabb came for a visit and set her son on a new path. “The entire Brazilian chiropractic movement, my own career … would not have happened had Mom not come down to Brazil,” says McNabb.

Unable to keep her healing hands to herself, the elder McNabb spent her visit adjusting the backs of volunteers and villagers alike.

The reaction was quite something, and the local MD, Sira Borges, took notice. Borges’ own aunt, who had suffered from crippling leg pain and debilitating migraines, was cured from her ailments. “It was miraculous, so she followed Mom around all day, afraid to leave her side,” says McNabb.

Even after Betty McNabb flew home to the West Coast, her chiropractic imprint remained. Brent McNabb remembers a poor villager who lived in a hut with 12 family members and suffered from insomnia. “He came up to me and talked about his relief—thanks to Mom—he couldn’t sleep before [he was adjusted by Mom]. He was so grateful.”

“That was a turning point,” says McNabb, who then felt as though his mother had accomplished more in a few days’ visit by utilizing nothing more than her knowledge and her hands than he had accomplished in two years of Peace Corps service. “She had no [other] equipment, and she could change a life like that. It was something I took for granted. I decided that I would study chiropractic.”

In a country that was still developing economically, alternative healing—especially the kind that required no expensive medical technology—would be a natural fit, thought Borges, who owned and operated the local health clinic.

Their commitments to the Peace Corps completed, McNabb and Royster spent two months backpacking across South America, ending the journey with a flight to visit Betty in California. Her energy affected Royster in the same manner it had her own son. Both young men went on the study and earn their DCs in the same class from Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa, and formed their business partnership.

But the pair had not forgotten their connection to Brazil, nor their friend Borges, who now, more than ever, believed her patients were ripe for chiropractic healing. “The key thing is we kept in touch,” says McNabb. In the mid-80s she came for a visit and invited first McNabb to work with her in her clinic, where he stayed for three months while Royster “held down the fort” back in Madison. Then the DCs switched places, says McNabb, and Royster went to work in the Brazilian clinic while McNabb stayed behind.

Dr. Borges became a true believer, and she asked her old friends if they could help her obtain her DC. With no known chiropractic industry in her own country, the pair knew they’d have to enroll her in a U.S. program. Borges would have to leave her own clinic, and her home, for two years (as an established MD she required only two years of chiropractic coursework) in order to fulfill her dream. She did not speak a word of English, and she had four children to bring with her—four boys ranging in age from their teens on down to under 10 years old.

“It was one of those moments we knew was hair-brained and crazy, logistically crazy,” says McNabb, “But we knew it would happen.”

And so it did. McNabb helped to rally fundraising efforts, to obtain donations of furniture and even money for the Borges family. The Wisconsin Chiropractic Association acted as the Borges’ sponsor, thanks, in part, to the lobbying of the two American DCs. In 1990, Borges earned her DC from Palmer College and went back to Brazil, eager to share her knowledge. What she found in the county of more than 150 million people was only three other practicing chiropractors with whom she could connect.

All together, the group set a goal of bringing a strong chiropractic movement to Brazil, at first, doctor by doctor. Throughout these past 18 years, “chiropractic has exploded,” says McNabb, in a time frame that’s “extraordinary.” In 1992, The Brazilian Chiropractic Association was founded, and it was accepted for membership within the World Federation of Chiropractic just two years later. (Dr. Borges, of course, served as the Brazilian Chiropractic Association’s first president.) Throughout the 1990s, Brazil served as the host of many interdisciplinary conferences, with both Drs. McNabb and Royster flying in for meetings, conferences and to offer their chiropractic services, always remembering their underlying tools of “hands and knowledge.” McNabb says that treating Brazilians with chiropractic care is especially rewarding, as the focus is solely on the patient’s well-being, not on third-party regulations.

After a few false starts, the mid-90s brought the team gold when first the Central University Feevale in south Brazil began their own Doctorate of Chiropractic program, in partnership with Palmer College.

In 2000, the first class of Brazilian-schooled chiropractors graduated, thus beginning the self-sustaining program that McNabb and his dedicated friends and partners long dreamed of, as the graduates themselves blended into the Brazilian teaching system.

No doubt, it’s a battle that McNabb and his colleagues will overcome.

©2008 Today's Chiropractic