Her patients say she makes magic with her hands. After 20 years of hospital work, Dr. Tammia guest set her sights on chiropractic care. As a black entrepreneur, she has beat the odds, growing her business, with now two locations in the Dallas area.
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00:00 As we continue to highlight Black Business Month tonight,
00:03 we're focusing on a successful doctor
00:05 who's beaten the odds in an industry
00:06 that rarely sees people of color.
00:09 Scripps News correspondent Jamal Andrus
00:11 pays the doctor a visit.
00:13 I'm gonna start with a little bit of soft tissue.
00:17 Her patients say she makes magic with her hands.
00:20 It helps me to be able to move and walk again.
00:23 She's been a lifesaver for me.
00:25 After 20 years of hospital work,
00:27 Dr. Tamiya Guest set her sights on chiropractic care.
00:31 As a black entrepreneur, she has beat the odds
00:33 growing her business with now two locations
00:36 in the Dallas area.
00:37 So I already kinda had a feel
00:40 for how the medical field works.
00:42 Worked with many doctors, nurses, and patients.
00:45 People felt like they could trust me.
00:47 Trust being somewhat hard to come by
00:49 for black Americans looking for healthcare.
00:52 A Kaiser poll found only six in 10 black adults
00:54 trust doctors to do what is right.
00:57 Most of the time.
00:58 That's compared to eight in 10 white adults.
01:01 She seemed to take more time out
01:02 and show more care, you know, more so than her pockets.
01:05 So I'm gonna have you look over here
01:07 and then I'm gonna kinda tell you a little bit
01:08 about how the body works.
01:09 Guest is part of the less than 2 1/2%
01:11 of black chiropractors in the industry.
01:13 Many clients do specify that they would like
01:16 to see a black provider.
01:18 Guest says she opened her first location
01:20 right after college with savings and support from family.
01:23 But the most difficult obstacle
01:25 was getting her first base of clients in the door.
01:27 I'm very shy and an introvert.
01:30 You can be a good adjuster
01:32 as far as chiropractic and wellness,
01:35 but you're gonna have to be able to get people in the door
01:39 because those things really don't matter
01:40 if you can't get people in the door.
01:42 Nationally, black-owned businesses are still rare
01:45 and longstanding profitable ones are even less common.
01:48 While a third of businesses overall
01:50 closed within the first two years,
01:52 eight out of 10 black-owned businesses
01:54 closed within the first 18 months.
01:57 There's nothing in my mind that brought me to think
02:00 that I couldn't make it, putting in the work.
02:03 Since Rejuvenating Chiropractic opened its doors in 2013,
02:09 it's grown to serve nearly 200 clients a week
02:12 and opened a second location.
02:14 I believe that many of them have stayed with me
02:16 because I make them feel like family.
02:19 And family brings family,
02:21 like Curtis Weems and his son, Amir.
02:23 I was kinda nervous 'cause I know popping all those bones
02:26 is kinda scary.
02:28 The trust that I have in her,
02:29 I bring my sons, several of the football guys come.
02:34 I have other coaches that comes here now.
02:37 I play DB, so y'all have really good hips.
02:40 And her working on my hips really helped a lot.
02:42 After 10 years of owning her own business,
02:44 Guess says she hopes to usher in the next generation
02:47 of not only chiropractors, but business owners.
02:50 You know, I wish I could say it was easy,
02:51 but you have to really have the discipline and energy
02:56 to want to work for yourself.
02:58 I'm really excited for the next 10 years,
03:00 doing different things that I wanna do,
03:04 and hopefully helping pull other doctors up
03:07 and train them on how to be a good chiropractor
03:11 and build up their community.
03:14 Jamal Andrus, Scripps News, Dallas.