Photo by Mike Lamb Dr. Quentin Fixen stands outside his office in Marshall next to the sign that advertises what is offered inside the building.

MARSHALL — For as long as Dr. Quentin Fixen could remember, he wanted to be a doctor.

“I always said I wanted to be a doctor since I was a little kid. I don’t remember wanting to do anything else,” Fixen said. “I grew up on a farm west of Marshall. I grew up in the farm life and I loved that. But my passion was to help people. Deciding what kind of doctor.”

That passion was helped along by his grandparents who took him along on their appointments to the chiropractor.

“I’ve gone to a chiropractor since I was a baby,” he said. “They would take me to a chiropractor just to get checked up. I never had health problems. It was just the lifestyle. You get adjusted and feel better and stay better and that’s how I grew up.”

“I always liked it. It felt good,” he said.

He didn’t decide on what kind of doctor he would be until later in life while following his educational journey.

Fixen completed his undergrad work at South Dakota State University and completed his doctor of chiropractic degree at Northwestern Health Sciences University in Minneapolis. He spent a year in Colorado, but decided to return to “my roots” in Marshall.

“I was going to go into the medical side of things, but I decided on — based on my passion — what I grew up with, this is what I chose (chiropractic),” he said.

In 2007, he opened his chiropractic office in Marshall.

“It’s been my drive to have my own business,” he said. “This (his office) was an orthodontics office. We remodeled it. I was in just this half of the building to start with. There was an architect office down the hall. And then, as time progressed, we took over a little space down there (architect part) as they downsized. Once Ron Halgerson, who was the architect, once he retired, I bought his share out and then we took over the whole building.”

Today, Fixen Chiropractic has expanded into more than just chiropractic care. It includes physical therapy and massage therapy.

“We are technically called a multi specialty clinic. That’s the technical name of what we are because of chiropractic, physical therapy, massage. We are hoping to offer more services. We actually started doing functional medicine. Dr. Abby Ricketts, she got her certification in functional med, so that’s just another aspect,” he said.

Fixen defines functional med as a way for people to get educated in different ways for people on diet and nutrition to held them deal with a variety of health issues.

Besides Fixen and Ricketts, other chiropractors on the staff include Dr. Kim Fier, Dr. Taylor Kruize and Dr. Cody Kruize.

Fixen says opinions on chiropractic care is changing.

“I would say the last decade or so, 10-15 years, people have been migrating toward prevention more than pain relief,” he said. “We do get a lot of people who come in with pain. They come in with an issue. A lot of people come in for that. But I would say equal, but more people come in feeling good and want to stay that way. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure sort of thing.

“(It) ends up increasing quality of life. Chiropractic does not cure anything, but we can improve how a person ages. It’s about mobility. We tell people how important it is to stay active, mobile. I always say it’s a piece of to the puzzle of a person’s health. It’s a lifestyle — diet, exercise and this is a nice addition in helping a person stay healthy. Quality of life when we get older.”

Fixen said people want to be “younger later in life” now.

“I want to feel good, I want to stay active, and they are finding mobility gets you there,” he said.

It’s that philosophy that has led Fixen down the path to offering other services such as physical therapy and massage therapy.

Dr. Jeny Bauer provides the physical therapy services and Cha Her provides massage therapy.

“Jeny, our physical therapist, she has been in physical therapy for as long as I have been a chiropractor. She’s really good. And she’s awesome with rehabbing post surgeries. She does a lot of work with a lot of the orthopedic surgeons in the area. The Orthopedic Institute comes to our office and rents space and works with them. We work with some patients from Avera as well,” he said. “She also sees a number of people, a fair amount of people, who rehab themselves, but they come back in for some education. That’s all part of the piece to stay healthy.”

Fixen says therapeutic massage is another piece of the puzzle for people.

“A lot what Cha does, our massage therapist, is a lot of work with people who want to stay feeling good. If you get a massage regularly, it does help to reduce a lot of tension and muscle adhesions. That helps to increase mobility and people can stay active longer. We have another massage therapist, Kayla (Lanners) rents from me and they are all busy,” he said.

“We have an amazing team. I couldn’t be more blessed with the team we got,” he said.

Fixen said he’s not done yet growing his business.

“We still have more things to explore,” he said.

One of those possibilities may be IV therapy, which delivers fluids, medication, nutrients directly into the bloodstream for rapid absorption.

“If you are immune compromised you basically come here and get an IV and get infused with vitamins and natural supplements to increase your immunity. It’s increased energy. We are still at the very early stages of planning for that,” he said.

“I always wanted to see where we could go,” Fixen said. “Offering chiropractic is our foundation, but not long into it, I realized there is a need for a lot of different things. I did have these goals and things in my head and you just put in the time and the people came.”