A Year of Success for Saint John Chiropractic Clinic
SAINT JOHN — Station Street Health marks its one-year anniversary in Uptown Saint John this month.
The multidisciplinary health clinic features chiropractic, physiotherapy, and massage therapy offerings. It got started at the tail end of the final Covid-19 lockdowns last January and hasn’t looked back.
It was a new start for owners Maria Boyle, a native Saint Johner, and her husband Rick Parisien, who hails from eastern Ontario. They had both been in Ontario studying to be chiropractors when they decided to make the move to Saint John. They spent four years practicing in the province, filling in on leave, until the time was right to strike out on their own.
“Growing up here I was always involved with like athletics and I have a huge family and I have a pretty large friend and family base that was easy to get the word out that I was a chiropractor,” says Boyle of the decision to start their own practice.
“New Brunswick, in terms of like people seeking a chiropractor, used to be almost like an ‘alternative’ health care–people were a little bit intimidated to go to.”
Parisien says he thought he’d be dealing with athletes in most of his practice, “but then you get out into the real world,” he laughs. With its industrial roots, Boyle and Parisien say they’ve been able to help a lot of people with work-related strains and pain.
“You’re going to have overuse rotator cuff injuries if you’re an electrician with [your arms] up overhead all the time, maybe tennis elbow. Low back pain if you’re always flexing for doing something underneath a deck or something like that,” Parisien says.
“They’re the best patients because you give them the real-world solutions. Getting someone out of pain is amazing.”
Over the past year, Station Street Health has grown to include seven additional healthcare professionals, including physiotherapists, massage therapists, and a naturopathic doctor.
Community outreach has always been a part of their model, not only for the clinic but for forging those personal relationships so important in a smaller city.
“For me, moving to a new province, a new city, it was what you make of it,” says Parisien. “I’ve always been active and involved playing sports teams and helping coach.”
“You start with zero patients. You start with nothing, you’re self-employed. It’s a matter of building relationships and like establishing communities and for me [the community] was naturally sports.”
Parisien says he and Boyle got more active with the sports community in Saint John and New Brunswick as a whole. Helping out with sports teams, volunteering with high school sports, giving talks about how their work relates to sports and injury – as well as other services which were new to the city at the time, like prenatal classes.
One year later they are still actively involved in the sports community.
In November, the clinic provided massage, physio, and chiropractic mini-sessions to participants in the Port City Showdown powerlifting competition. And in October, they participated in the Legs for Literacy run in Moncton, which helps raise funds for school literacy programs.
And then there’s the location. Right next to Saint John sports central, TD Station, home of the Saint John Sea Dogs.
Like Station Street, their location was the actual CN train station, right in the heart of the city. They bought the building from Maritime Bus.
“My father is a developer in Saint John and he literally had his eye on this building for like 10 plus years,” Boyle says. “He was always envisioning that spot for like my future office someday. He said it would be such a perfect space to house like some type of health clinic.”
When it became available by chance when they were looking for a location for their clinic, Boyle decided to follow her father’s advice and check the building out, and the rest is history.
Ultimately, the success of the practice is not about the location, it’s about getting results for the patients. One year in and Boyle is proud of what she and the clinicians have done to help the members of the Saint John community.
“You initially had people coming in here that were in so much pain that they could hardly walk, to now they’re running 5 K’s. You’ve had people come in here that had headaches every single day and now they haven’t had headaches in months,” she says.
“There has been a lot of growth in this practice, with adding professionals, but there’s also been a lot of success in terms of getting patients moving and feeling better too.”
Alex Graham is a Huddle reporter in Saint John. Send her your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].