I landed in Las Vegas the night before Parker Seminar 2026.
Last year it was chilly enough to keep your jacket on. This year was warmer — that awkward weather where you can't decide whether to take it off. The airport was quieter than I remembered. Immigration took seconds.
I've learned from experience: register the day before or you'll stand in line for 30 minutes. Parker Seminar has been running since 1951 — the largest chiropractic and wellness conference in the US. This year was the 75th anniversary, and you could tell. The venue felt more polished, more intentional. They were expecting around 5,000 attendees.
I came with the BTC Korea members. After registration, we took the monorail to the Palace hotel — the kind of place that makes you feel like you should be on a date — and had oysters, pasta, and steak. Then decaf coffee and dessert at the same café I'd eyed last year but never tried. This time, I was determined to beat the jet lag.
Why Does a Pain Medicine Doctor Attend a Chiropractic Conference?
I closed my clinic for three days.
I opened on my usual day off to make up for some of the lost revenue, but when you do the math, it's close to a full month's profit gone. Add flights, hotels, and registration fees, and the number gets uncomfortable.
Every time, I hesitate. I look at my bank account. I see my kids' faces asking when Dad's coming home. The night before I left, that feeling hit again.
I still came.
Because if I don't see the wave of change with my own eyes, I'll quietly fall behind.
The Conference Is Changing — and That's the Point
This was my third time. Orlando two years ago, Vegas last year, Vegas again. What felt foreign at first is starting to feel familiar.
Back in Korea, when I say I went to a chiropractic conference, people look puzzled. Chiropractic isn't a licensed profession here. Even in the US, MDs still look down on it. I know that.
But I keep learning here.
Look at the speaker lineup and you can read where this conference is heading. Gary Vee (entrepreneur, content marketing icon) was here last year too. But this year also brought Rhonda Patrick (nutrition and longevity researcher), William Li (pioneer in angiogenesis research), and Andy Galpin (muscle physiology professor, Huberman Lab regular). The ratio has shifted — fewer chiropractic adjustment technique lectures, more longevity medicine, muscle science, nutrition, AI, and marketing on the main stage.
Korean medical conferences focus on clinical technique. That's not a bad thing. But the urgency is different. American chiropractors — when their survival is threatened — look further ahead. They're already executing on things we haven't even started discussing. Staff training, marketing, business, AI. They already know that being good at treating patients isn't enough.
Close your eyes and ears, and the gap widens silently.
What Stuck With Me From Each Session
I attended sessions across three days. I'll write detailed breakdowns separately — here's just the one line that stayed in my head from each.
Mike Boyle (legendary strength coach, founder of MBSC) — "Adults are people who work for a living. You should never give them exercises that could injure them and threaten their livelihood."
Andy Galpin (Cal State Fullerton, muscle physiology) — I had no idea you could analyze NBA and MLB athletes' muscles with MRI at that level of precision. Sports science is already there.
Gary Vee (VaynerMedia CEO) — Last year I just listened. This year it hit differently. I walked out with a concrete plan for how to create content and build my own brand.
Jeff Langmaid (founder of The Smart Chiropractor) — Watching a live demo of an AI call agent answering patient phone calls, I had one thought: Korea is still slow. The US is already using this. We're just getting started.
Last year I focused on musculoskeletal clinical sessions. This time I deliberately chose different tracks — obesity, nutrition, business, marketing, AI. Same conference, different tracks, and it felt like an entirely different event. Did I change, or did the conference change? Probably both.
Dinner with Mark Sanna, CEO of Breakthrough Coaching
During the conference, we had dinner with Mark Sanna.
Dr. Sanna is the CEO of Breakthrough Coaching (BTC) and has been mentoring Korean members for over a decade. He's not just a business coach. What he's consistently emphasized to Korean doctors is work-life balance. Working hard is a given — but it's not enough. That's why he brings us here in person: to attend the conference, share meals, experience Las Vegas together. He believes what you learn inside the lecture hall and what you experience outside of it need to go hand in hand.
That's why BTC Korea members don't just come to learn clinical techniques. We come to see and feel how wellness actually operates in America — how the world outside the clinic is moving, and what role a doctor can play in it.
Something he said that night stayed with me.
A lot changed after COVID, he said. The things Korean doctors are facing now — insurance reforms squeezing manual therapy reimbursement, shaky private insurance coverage — these already happened in America. That's why so many American chiropractors pivoted toward wellness and longevity. Toward practice models that don't depend on insurance.
The shift we're seeing at this conference wasn't an accident.
Dr. Sanna always takes care of us. Even when speaking English, he uses simple words and speaks slowly. You can feel him paying attention to each Korean member individually. I'm still learning what it means to learn from someone like that.
Leaving Parker Seminar 2026
On the last day, I checked out at 8 AM, left my luggage with the hotel, and sat through lectures until 5:30 PM. My flight was at 10:50 PM. Getting back to Daegu from the airport was another marathon. But none of that mattered.
On the way home, I was filled with a strange excitement. Not because I learned something new — but because I got confirmation that the direction I'm heading is right. It wasn't knowledge. It was direction.
One thing was different this year. Our members all actively recorded sessions, and we pooled our study materials. I had built a speech-to-text translation pipeline before the trip — real-time Korean subtitles from English lectures. Being able to follow along without missing anything changed my focus entirely.
I'll Be Back Next Year
If you ask whether I'll come again next year — of course I will.
I'm already curious what topics, what speakers, what insights will be waiting.
I'll be writing up each session in detail. The clinical takeaways and the business takeaways, one by one.
I'm a pain medicine doctor in South Korea who also builds software. I write about the intersection of medicine, technology, and building a practice that doesn't depend on the old model.