It might sound so cliché when Dr. Garry Younts says “you’ve got to treat your patients like family,” until you know what happened to his family.


When Younts was 15 years old, his mother was experiencing all the symptoms of a pending heart attack.

Only her doctor didn’t believe it.

“It’s stress,” the practitioner told the family, Younts recalls. She was Asian and only 42 years old, so the doctor figured the demographics said chances were slight.

Six days later, she suffered a fatal heart attack.

“I blamed the doctor for being a bad doctor,” Younts said.

Younts opened West Branch Family Chiropractic Center at 109A East Main Street on Dec. 5, just in time for Christmas Past.

But the chiropractic field was not Younts’ first choice for a career.

He originally studied to be a chemist and landed a job in the research and development department of an agriculture company. Then, in 2004, a twist of fate came in the form of a twisted ankle.

He slipped on the ice.

Younts tried to tough it out even though a friend, a chiropractor, encouraged him to pay him a visit. After a few weeks of pain, Younts realized that he could no longer remember his nighttime dreams, and wondered if he was suffering from mental fatigue.

He made an appointment for a physical and an “adjustment.”

“The pain was gone immediately,” he said. “That night, my dreams suddenly came back, and I thought, ‘Wow, there’s more to this than moving a bone and cracking.’”

He enrolled at Palmer Chiropractic College in Davenport, “the Harvard of chiropractic schools,” he said, which about one-third of chiropractors attend.

Younts was born in Coco Solo, Panama. His father was in the special forces and their family lived in several states, like North Carolina, New Jersey, Utah and Washington. He even once lived in Korea. But he met his wife, Heidi, here in Iowa. She works at the University of Iowa, and Younts chose to open his practice Dec. 5 in the same town where they live — West Branch.

But why here, a small city that already has Staker Health Center, another chiropractor?

“I know Shane’s in town,” Younts said, referring to Shane Staker. “And Shane’s a great guy, but we’re not in competition.”

Younts said there are some 200 different chiropractic techniques, and his technique may work where another technique may not.

“At school, they said that if the patient is not getting better, don’t blame the technique,” he said.

Younts also said he does not wish to work in Iowa City. He wants his practice to grow, but not so much that his time with patients is cut so short that he cannot provide that personal touch, the touch that he felt was lacking when his mother died.

He is glad to see chiropractic care growing in acceptance the more it proves itself as a legitimate form of alternative medicine. Up until the 1940s, when penicillin was discovered, Younts said that physicians and surgeons had “no advantage” over chiropractors.

But there is a growing understanding that the body can heal itself in many ways, he said. Through “proprioception” (PRO-pree-o-SEP-shun) — the medical term of the body running constant diagnostic checks on itself — the body tries to find ways to relieve stress, repair cuts and bruises and broken bones, and lessen pain.

“We know the signs of an impending heart attack,” he said, “but what about the signs from the liver, or pancreas?”

Younts remodeled the former gift shop over five weeks for about $6,000, with the help of a $2,000 revolving loan from Main Street West Branch.

MSWB Program Director Rod Ness said Younts showed he had a solid business plan, and his practice reflects a national trend that residents are looking for a variety of wellness options “while practitioners are discovering what often looks like competition can actually be complementary to each other’s success.”

“We believe Dr. Younts can complement our existing wellness options within the community,” Ness said.

Younts said Main Street has helped him with networking by introducing him to other business owners and he has even gotten involved in the group.

Younts and his wife have three children: Hunter, 10, Olivia, 8, and Rosemary, 10 months.

Patients, he said, are slowly coming in. You may reach him at 643-2035 or drgarryyounts@gmail.com.