Having practiced chiropractic in Kuala Lumpur for a year, Dr Will Kalla felt it was time to move on. He did and made a trip down to Singapore only to fall in love with country enough to set up his own practice here.
Originally from Stockholm, the young doctor wanted to see more of the world and decided that Asia in general was a great place to start his new life and establish his career. He also felt that since Sweden and Singapore shared rather similar prices, it would not be so difficult to adapt and that at out of the three countries, Singapore, in his opinion, was the most simple and straight-forward country to start his own business.
However, moving to Singapore from Kuala Lumpur was no easy matter. It took him six months of planning before he even left KL. One of the hardest things that Will noticed was the difficulty in locating an ideal office since there is a number of a criterion to fulfill, such as a searching for a convenient venue, paying three months’ worth of rental upfront which means one must need plenty of capital to start ahead with.
“In terms of starting up a business here in Singapore, it is relatively easy.” says Will, “But that’s only if you have enough capital to begin with.”
His biggest challenge though, is the significant lack of awareness about chiropractic in Singapore.
Yet, despite the lack of awareness, his clients are made up of more local Singaporeans than expatriates. He receives an equal number of male and female patients, ranging from their mid-thirties to fifties. The more common ailments from this group include neck and shoulder pains and acute lumbar scoliosis which can lead to agonizing lower back aches.
According to Will, he is seeing more and more of these problems everyday and that it is only the start of it. He believes that it is probably due to major amount of time that Singaporeans spend on the computer, in a bad posture for more than 12 hours a day.
“When I was young, I would be running and jumping around the forest near my home back in Sweden, getting the necessary exercise that a normal child requires.” adds Will, “In Singapore, the kids are all on their computers and placing a considerable amount of stress on their spines and other areas of their bodies.”
In order to prevent more of these problems occurring in the younger generation, Will conducts a number of workshops to educate the public about the importance of good posturing and how to maintain it as they grow older.
Will describes a typical week as ‘a lot of work!’ and averaging between six to ten patients per day. Prime time is usually early in the mornings before nine or after six in the evenings when his patients stream in before or after work.
For more information, you can go to http://www.precision-spine.com
