Which came first ”“ the chicken or the egg? This is a question posed by Stephan Gross, Cold Spring chiropractor, founder of Cold Spring Healing Arts and a believer in integrative medicine.
As a chiropractor, he identifies three spinal cord areas affecting various parts of the human body: the neck, the middle back and the lower back. “It can work two ways,” he explains. “If a problem starts in the spinal cord, it will eventually affect other body organs. If the problem is pathological, it will eventually affect the spinal cord.”
Raised in Putnam Valley and a graduate of Lakeland High School, Gross entered the professional field later than most of his colleagues. Before entering the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he spent a year in school in Israel, returning to receive two bachelor”™s degrees from Stony Brook, one in political science and one in chemistry.
“I then sold my motorcycle and returned to Israel,” he said. He served in the Israeli army in a unit patrolling the southern border “to prevent terrorists from infiltrating the country,” he explained.
Returning home, he entered the National College of Chiropractic in Lombard, Ill. There followed a bachelor”™s degree in human biology and, after another five years, a doctorate in chiropractic.
He opened his own practice in 1990 and founded Cold Spring Healing Arts in 1996.
He sublets space to qualified professionals in massage therapy, acupuncture, reflexology, mental health, psychology and nutrition. “Mental health is the most pressing demand,” he said.
The offices have homelike decor designed to reduce patient tensions. But one memorable treatment did not take place at his offices. He received a frantic call from a woman whose employer, a diamond merchant, had fallen in his vault and could not get up. Gross did the treatment in the vault, surrounded by diamonds. “Every time my wife had a baby, I went there and bought her diamonds,” he recounted.
“I get a high at helping heal people,” he concedes about his personal involvement with patients. He refers to a carpenter, a member of a trade prone to falls and accidents, who came to him in pain. “I kept urging an MRI, but the man had no insurance. I feared multiple disc injuries and was on the verge of paying for it myself, but I did not know how to do it without wounding his pride, when his wife got a job with benefits. The MRI disclosed an extramedullary spinal cord tumor. I referred him to a surgeon, who removed it. The surgeon told me that further delay would have cost him his life.”
Gross is proud of his record of healing headaches, “an upper cervical condition ”¦ I have a near 100 percent cure rate.”
Certain chiropractic problems are seasonal, Gross pointed out. “It”™s the lower back in winter from shoveling snow and ice.”
The youngest of eight children, Gross became involved in helping people at any early age. “My father was chief of probation in New York City, and we had parolees living in our house.”
Early in his practice a patient surprised him by saying “I have a nice Jewish girlfriend for you. I”™ve left her name and phone number on your desk. Call her.” Unwilling to offend a patient in his new practice, he obliged, explaining to Nancy that he was not into the dating scene. They hit it off on the phone. He said, “If we”™re going to get married, let”™s just do it.” Sight unseen, they set a wedding date for a year from that day.
That was 18 years and four children ago.
Challenging Careers focuses on the exciting and unusual business lives of Hudson Valley residents. Comments or suggestions may be e-mailed to Catherine Portman-Laux at cplaux@optonline.net.       Â
