PORT HUENEME : It’s All in the Family at Chiropractic Office

Since the beginning of this month, Nancy Doreo, 31, has served as supervising chiropractor for the newest intern in her Port Hueneme office--her 51-year-old mother, Barbara Doreo.

And the general rule in the family practice is that daughter knows best.

“I am absolutely required to do whatever she asks,” Barbara Doreo said.

Mom will be taking orders from daughter until August, when the elder Doreo completes her internship and gets her own chiropractic license.

It is an apprenticeship she takes seriously, the senior Doreo said.

“I have to watch my P’s and Q’s,” Barbara Doreo said. “I can’t act as though because I’m her mother I can get away with anything.”

As her mother’s supervisor, Nancy Doreo said, she demonstrates proper techniques for manipulation of the spine. The younger Doreo is also responsible for writing weekly reports on her mother’s progress to the Los Angeles College of Chiropractic in Whittier. Doreo could even fire her mother if she needed to. That shouldn’t be necessary, the younger Doreo said.

“We work well together,” she said. “Our relationship is more like friends than a mother-daughter relationship.”

But the Doreo dynasty doesn’t stop there.

Nancy Doreo also brings her infant daughter, Marlena, to her office each day so she can continue to nurse the 3-month-old. Patients don’t seem to mind the baby’s occasional squalls and are often enthralled to see the little girl rocking to sleep in an automatic swing set up in the office’s waiting area.

“Patients take turns holding the baby,” Barbara Doreo said. “The men and the women, the young and the old. They all get a kick out of it.”

Barbara Doreo, an Oxnard resident, decided to follow her daughter into the field after working 20 years as a dental hygienist.

“I’m one of those people who keeps doing something else all the time,” Barbara Doreo said.

The lure of eventually sharing a practice with her daughter was also a strong motivation, she said.

“None of the other students at my college were lucky enough to go into a family practice,” she said.