April 1991

What recession?

by Dr. Jim Sigafoose

I see and hear about a so‑called hard times, but I don't see it with my eyes and it doesn't exist in my environment.

I do believe D.C.s that are practicing very similar to M.D.s and D.O.s will have a difficult time marketing their services as they are eating from an already overcrowded table.

I also believe that people who are working for and depending on third party payers for their practice are having a hard time and it only will get worse.

Also, those that choke upon fear and rumors of our doomsday reporters will suffer irreparably.

The fact that we are going into and learning hospital protocol and how to fit in the hospital glove, consciously or unconsciously, prepares us to compromise and softens our preparedness to resist absorption into the medical way of life.

I see with my experience of talking, traveling and visiting offices that these who have the most difficult time of getting and keeping patients are those that don't know the difference between their practice and that of a physiotherapist.

Then there are those who see themselves as cathopods, neuros, etc., and don't distinguish their practice from that of a medic. These people have a small part of the therapeutic pie and no real doctor recognition by anyone than themselves and a few patients.

Conversely, the ones I see doing the best are those that:

*** Are educating patients and their families...

*** Are allowing finances to be worked out...

*** Don't duplicate other professions...

*** Have certainty in their technique...

*** Understand why chiropractic works or does not work...

*** Love what they do...

*** Make chiropractic a way of life -- by being drugless, Innately centered, loving, giving and serving, and by recognizing the difference between first aid and chiropractic care.

Since our schools are not meeting the task at hand and preparing our students to be uniquely different in dealing with the world, our young people appear confused and very fearful.

When we prepare our D.C.s to meet head on with the problems of ignorance at hand in the world ‑ with the why's and how's ‑ fear is diminished. The more familiar we are with who we are and what we do, the more able we become to perform without fear and the need for duplication.

If our D.C.s don't know for certain what chiropractic does and represents and how and why, then the tendency is to avoid it and play it down as not of value.

When large numbers of any species or groups thinks and projects a certain way, the perception of the rest of those species and groups tends to come into agreement. The value of anything only becomes valuable when someone or many agree on its value. The more agreement of value, the more desirous it becomes.

If and when we believe in ourselves and the value of our unique service and we aggressively express and teach it, then the more others will agree with it and desire it. Charisma is the magnetic attraction of one who others innately know can be of help ‑ mentally, physically or spiritually.

Recession and hard times belong to those who see and accept the same and are willing to play someone's game that is in agreement with recession and hard times.

Success, happiness, health, power, joy, knowledge, etc., belong to those who have overcome fear, have certainly in themselves and their actions, and who are centered in their producer, not the products, and recognize the gift of life in all things and who have surrendered to God.