Alumni Spotlight
NUHS Alumna Receives ACA Board Appointment, Humanitarian of the Year Award
The American Chiropractic Association( ACA) recently announced that Dr. Karen Konarski-Hart of Little Rock, Ark. was appointed to its Board of Governors and also received the 2018 Humanitarian of the Year Award. Konarski-Hart, DC(’ 79) received the appointment and the award during the National Chiropractic Leadership Conference( NCLC) March 2.
Dr. Karen Konarski-Hart Accepts Award
Dr. Konarski-Hart has been a member of the ACA since she was a student of NUHS, then National Chiropractic College( NCC). She has also served as ACA vice president. In addition to her private practice, she has been a proponent of public health throughout her career, and has extensive experience as an EMT / first responder. Dr. Konarski-Hart continues her efforts to champion chiropractors to become certified for federal disaster response teams.
One of her enduring memories is of Dr. Janse standing before the students, stating that it was their obligation to support the organizations that support them, and to join and be active in both the state association and the ACA.
“ This sentiment was echoed by instructors and doctors in the field,” she said.“ I graduated with membership in both organizations, because of an expectation and a sense of duty.” Dr. Konarski-Hart said she believes that working together,“ practitioners can achieve so much more than any of one of us could as an individual.”
“ Through our state and national associations, there are people who are monitoring, lobbying and representing our professional interests so that we can engage in research, teach and treat patients in the way we choose,” she continued.“ When I speak to doctors outside of Washington, I frequently tell them,“ The ACA is there so you can be here.”
In the following, Dr. Konarski-Hart discusses some of her experiences at NUHS and as a Doctor of Chiropractic.
Is there anything you learned as a student at NUHS that inspired you to serve and lead-- not just within the profession-- but in the broader community?
As students, we were often involved in community activities, sports, health fairs, etc., as well as being encouraged to explore chiropractic in a broader scope-- nutrition, kinesiology, acupuncture, and even gynecology. We were inspired by having speakers, or visiting the practices of Doctors of Chiropractic who took a more holistic approach to health.
We also had instructors who had degrees in other disciplines. Perhaps being a student and graduating just as the Wilkes suit began, when there was little inter-professional collaboration, required us to develop broad-based skills such as developing and reading X-rays, and drawing and analyzing blood.
It also instilled a creative instinct to form unconventional partnerships. I remember writing a letter to a young herbal tea company, telling them about this group of chiropractic students organizing a community health fair and asking them: Wouldn’ t it be great if their natural product could be served at it? A few weeks later, cases of Celestial Seasonings tea arrived at my door-- enough for the fair and for the school to continue to serve until we graduated.( Red Zinger is still my