“Faith, Family and Friendships Brings Forth Chiropractic”

Dr. Marcus Hummel graduated from Life University’s (Life U) Doctor of Chiropractic program in March 2021. His best memory is the Student LIFEforce organization and the friendships he built through that student organization. Dr. Hummel is especially grateful for his friendships with Drs. Kain Queck and Spencer Surmont, both of whom he is still in regular contact with. He and Dr. Queck talk every month, and he and Dr. Surmont speak on a weekly basis. Those times as a student and those friendships he made are so important to him.

While attending Life U, Dr. Hummel received the Life Leadership Award as the President of Student LIFEforce for the 2018-2019 academic year at the annual awards banquet. Student LIFEforce also received the Organization Leadership award that year. Additionally, Dr. Hummel was awarded the Ohio Chiropractic Association scholarship, which provided funding for his education. Today, Dr. Hummel is involved in the Ohio State Chiropractic Organization as the treasurer of his local district and the co-chairman for the membership committee for the state convention. He will be leading a zoom meeting of the membership community in April.

Dr. Hummel believes in giving back to Life U by inspiring his patients to consider a career in Chiropractic and to consider Life U as the institution to receive their education. He plans on bringing some of his patients and a cousin to experience LIFE Leadership Weekend sometime soon.

The Hummel family practice has two generations of Hummel family chiropractors and two offices: Brookville Family Practice in Brookville, Ohio and Tipp City Family Practice in Tipp City, Ohio. Dr. Hummel’s father goes between both practices and works six days a week as he has done for the past 20 years. Dr. Hummel works between the two locations five days a week, and his mother works at one location three half-days a week. It is truly a family practice where Dr. Hummel and his parents take care of several generations of families. The patients range in age from hours-old newborns to mid-90s. Dr. Hummel is himself a third-generation chiropractor and the tenth chiropractor in the Hummel family. In fact, their favorite tagline is “Family Taking Care of Families.”

Besides his professional involvement in chiropractic associations, Dr. Hummel is involved in the Young Catholic Professionals in Columbus, Ohio. His Catholicism is something that Dr. Hummel treasures. He shares that his religion and spirituality are meaningful to him, and he also sees the relationship between them and Chiropractic. Both address the entire person from spiritual to physical and everything in between. He knew in high school that he wanted to be a chiropractor but wanted a firm foundation for his faith before then and decided to get his undergraduate degree in Biology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Steubenville, Ohio. While there, Dr. Hummel led a group of 40 men in what he called faith and life formation. These men would gather daily to pray together, do weekly bible studies, hold accountability sessions and share daily scriptures and devotions.

“It was like a mini seminary,” said Dr. Hummel.

In fact, at one point Dr. Hummel considered becoming a catholic priest but truly felt that he was “called to be a father.” He looks forward to the day when he has his own family. He wants to be able to share with his family the sacramental life offered in the Catholic faith.

Family is very important to the Hummel family, and they are very close with one another. They are a large family with six children, Dr. Hummel being the oldest child.  He has a sister, who is a librarian and a brother who will be graduating this September from Life U in the Chiropractic program.  There is a 10-year gap between the three oldest children and the three younger children. One brother is in middle school, one brother is in fourth grade and the youngest brother who just turned seven and is Dr. Hummel’s godson is in first grade.  Their mother goes between working part-time as a chiropractor and raising the three younger boys.

“Living that life and seeing the fruit graced on our family, and as busy as my parents were, we would sit down every night to have dinner together, and we would always have night prayer before bed,” said Dr. Hummel. “[We would] prioritize taking off for Christmas and Easter, going to church every Sunday, even when we were on vacations. The cool thing about the Catholic Church is it’s universal. No matter where you’re at in the world, I have been to mass all around the world.”

One of Dr. Hummel’s future goals for this practice is to hire associates once his parents cut back their hours or retire, and he plans on purchasing the practice from them in the next couple of years. He wants to “maintain the same patient flow.”

“I want to provide more chiropractic care to the North Dayton, Ohio area. A lot of that is through the systems that have been working for generations and continue with maybe little tweaks here and there and obviously with some technology improvements because we still use travel cards and stuff. And we also use ChiroTouch and do digital note-taking. It’s an up-to-date aspect, but if the power goes out, we’re still full gear because we have the old methods that we can use as well.”

Dr. Hummel’s advice to other alumni is to get involved in local and state chiropractic organizations.

“Through your involvement, you are going to find people that are able to support you. We are already isolated enough in a world of social media, in our own bubbles and watching what other people are doing. If you have that person-to-person interaction and support of doctors in your area […] Being on each other’s teams and helping each other is a better viewpoint than viewing someone as competition.

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