Earlier this year, Bruce Vaughan, D.C., president of the
World Federation of Chiropractic (WFC), accused the World Chiropractic Alliance (WCA) of
wrongdoing by issuing membership certificates to non D.C.s.
"The WCA has granted chiropractic certificates with the degree designator 'DC' to
kinesiologists, physical therapists and others without chiropractic qualifications in a
number of countries around the world," he claimed in a May 10, 2000, letter to Robert
Hoffman, D.C., president of the International Chiropractors Association (ICA).
Although Vaughan failed to cite a single instance in which this actually happened, the
implication was that the WCA was providing credentials to non-chiropractors overseas.
WCA attorney David Bodney quickly countered the accusation by informing Vaughan that,
"The WCA has never granted chiropractic certificates with degree designators to
anyone. Indeed, the WCA has never issued chiropractic credentials, licenses or degrees to
anyone. While the WCA formerly gave membership certificates to its new members (whether
they be lay persons or professionals) it has not issued even membership certificates to
new members for many months."
The membership certificates contained the applicant's name. The "D.C."
designation was added for those applicants who identified themselves as doctors of
chiropractic.
Terry A. Rondberg, D.C., WCA president, dismissed the WFC letter as "just another
ridiculous attempt to hurt the WCA, which the WFC sees as the most formidable obstacle to
its plans to regulate chiropractic worldwide."
He noted that he had every intention of ignoring the whole issue as sheer
"silliness," until both David Chapman-Smith, "Secretary General" of
the WFC and an ICA Board Member who is now also an officier in the WFC, repeated the
accusations at public chiropractic events.
"If they're going to continue trying to make an issue
out of this nonsense, I figured I should respond," he explained. "It is
unreasonable to expect an organization conduct background checks on applicants to
determine whether they are actually chiropractors. If someone applies to the WCA -- or any
group -- and claims to be a D.C., the group is going to address them as a D.C. and
register them as a doctor member."
To prove his point, Dr. Rondberg applied for membership in the WFC, ACA, and ICA under
the name "Darla Honey, D.C." All three organizations quickly accepted the
membership and sent membership materials to "Dr. Honey." Oddly, Chapman-Smith
handwrote a note of thanks on the bottom to the transmittal letter, but crossed out the
"Dr. Honey" and penned in "Darla."
His attempt at familiarity was wasted on this particular applicant, however, since what
the applications didn't mention was that Darla is Dr. Rondberg's golden retriever.
"If you ask me," Rondberg said with a wry smile, "This might be the
start of a new recruitment drive for some of these groups. At least this way when they
throw a bone to their members, a few of them will be pleased!"
