Etienne Henriot joins us by way of Dijon in France’s Burgundy province. We’ll get to how he found his way to Tulsa in a bit. But first, Etienne says his interest in medicine began around age 8. He asked his mom for “a real medical book.” After a family friend and doctor gave him a pathology book. He loved it.
He went on to earn a chemistry degree and went into pharmacy studies, which transformed into a pre-med degree. However, his goal to become an orthopedic surgeon was not to be due to the challenge of getting student loans without a residency visa. So, instead, he joined St. Francis Hospital’s genetics lab, where he worked for ten years doing karyotyping tissue harvesting, microarray, next-generation sequencing, neurodegenerative disease testing, and an enormous amount of microscope work, as well as lab work in toxicology.
It was a chance conversation with a chiropractor that changed his career path. Dr. Sherry Hays noticed his inclination to the work and how Etienne tended to ask all the right questions. She suggested he consider Chiropractic as a career. That’s when he realized that instead of being at the back end of issues, being a chiropractor would put him at the forefront.
“I love helping people. I want to see myself grow as a provider that helps people feel better,” Etienne says. “I’m a servant at heart. I love to serve people, and I love to make people’s lives better however I can.”
So, he applied and was accepted at Cleveland University of Kansas City, where he earned his Doctor of Chiropractic and now joins the team at Tulsa Spine and Rehab.
“I was attracted to Tulsa Spine and Rehab because of Dr. Riley’s approach to the power of chiropractic,” Etienne says. “I like that he sees the broader picture of things because that’s how my mind works.”
As for what brought him from Dijon to Tulsa, blame it on love. He met his wife and Tulsa native Jennifer while she was studying for her international business degree in France. As chance would have it, she was rooming with one of his sister’s best friends. But, it was his mom who suggested he meet “an American girl and experience somebody from a different culture.” It was love at first sight for them both. Twenty years later, they call Tulsa home—along with their two children and two dogs.
