Making people smile is easy when you’re always smiling.

For Bill Charlton of the Parkwood Chiropractic Centre of Bracebridge, it’s his personalized care that has his patients appreciative and laughing when they see him for chiropractic and acupuncture health care.

“Just call me, Bill,” he said.

It’s this very dedication and care he applies to the overall profession, in particular his efforts toward the peer assessment program as a peer assessor, that earned him the Presidential Award from the College of Chiropractors of Ontario (CCO).

“I was quite surprised. I had no knowledge of this,” he said.

Charlton received the award at a peer assessor workshop in Toronto during the third weekend of January after it was initially handed out at the CCO annual general meeting, which he was unable to make on June 21.

“You go out and do this time after time and you begin to wonder, is this really worth doing? Some people are hostile when you arrive,” he said. “I go in and I’m Mr. Data. That’s it. I do my thing. You just keep it pleasant. There are some practices that you don’t find anything that is out of place, nothing. It’s perfect. They’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing and are happy and everyone is happy with them. Others you wonder how they stay in business . . . the objective of this program is to bring the entire profession to a common level and to give assurance to the public that the practitioners out there are at a certain level,” he said.

Although technically in his retirement, Charlton loves his work and it shows. After a 17-year career as an art director, managing the pre-press for a packaging company in Scarborough, including the printing of album jackets, he escaped the stresses of the deadline for the health-care world at 32 in the late 1980s. He started his Scarborough practice in 1990 and then opened another one in Oshawa in 1998. Charlton came here in 2000 as part of his retirement and to come back for his wife, who was born in Bracebridge.

Charlton started with the program three years ago, and he has spent thousands of hours critiquing and logged thousands of kilometres spanning the northern Ontario region (from Severn Bridge to the northern Ontario border, then out east to the Quebec border and west to the Manitoba border) of District 1 to ensure everyone is conforming to industry regulations, standards and practices. Practices are chosen randomly and when chosen, a package that includes a questionnaire is sent to the practice that must be completed and sent back to the CCO prior to the assessor’s visit.

“Doing this is a lot of fun. You meet a lot of different people. It’s far easier than managing a pre-press of a printing company,” he said. He learns from the people he assesses as much as he instructs, he added.

The president of the college, Gilles Lamarche, who is the award’s founder and recognizes individuals who have made above and beyond contributions in chiropractic care, said the 30 recipients for this year’s award are invaluable to the peer assessment program and to the credibility of their industry.

“It was a way to recognize their efforts and their dedication. And a way of thanking them for truly being committed to improving the quality of care for chiropractic patients in Ontario,” he said. “All these people dedicate hours and hours and hours outside of their practice to come in and help the CCO that helps provide a regulatory system that works. (I thought) wouldn’t it be great to recognize these people that stand out and are really contributing at a high level.”

Initially the peer assessment program started with the expectation to evaluate 10 per cent of the more than 3,000 practices every year. The program has since advanced this toward the evaluation of 20 per cent a year, completing the assessment of all of the practices in five, rather than 10 years due to all the assessors in the province.

The award has only been given for two years and is decided solely by the CCO president.