The "chiropractic mission trip" is alive and well at chiropractic colleges across the U.S. It allows groups of students to travel to far away places such as India, Peru, and many other foreign countries to adjust individuals who often have little or no access to health care.

These trips have raised an important ethical dilemma that is currently being hotly debated in the chiropractic community.

I recently had the pleasure of traveling to India on one of these mission trips. Objections I've encountered to them are, I believe, valid and deserve to be addressed. Following is a short list of common objections to mission trips, followed by a response.

Response #1: "We are real enough to adjust individuals in the United States, and have our University receive money for our work."

D.D. Palmer was not a chiropractor when he gave the first adjustment to Harvey Lillard. This bold and insightful discovery gave birth to the second-largest primary health care profession in America. Today, there are guidelines and stringent academic standards in place, but I do not believe that a piece of paper makes the doctor.

If students are at the level in their education when our country and their University feel that they are competent enough to adjust patients in the U.S., I see no reason why they should not be allowed to adjust patients in foreign countries as well.

When I contemplated going to India, I must admit that I was excited about the amount of experience I was going to gain as a student. Yet, after the first few hours of adjusting, a paradigm shift occurred in my head. I realized that to these people, I was, in fact, the doctor, and that was not a bad thing. On the contrary, I was helping them enormously, not merely practicing on them.

I will not let a piece of paper prevent me from giving the gift of chiropractic to those in such desperate need of it. In less than four days, I adjusted more people than the requirement to graduate from Life University in 3-1/2 years. So I ask you, is the diploma a necessity for mission trips?

Response #2: "So are doctors."

When is the cut off for practicing? If I am still improving my adjusting one day after I graduate, am I not still "practicing" on my patients? How about a month or one year after graduation? How about 10 years after graduation? The art of chiropractic should be a skill that constantly improves as one grows. That's why they call it running a "practice."

You should always be advancing your chiropractic knowledge and skills. Any truly successful chiropractor will tell you that he or she never stops learning or improving.

Response #3: "No X-rays, no worries..."

The truth is, we had translators to take a cursory history of our patients, and many patients did, in fact, bring X-rays and MRIs with them. If we had a specific question in our minds as to what would be the best course of action for a patient, a licensed chiropractor (our trip leader) was never too far away.

Personally, I feel that many chiropractors in the United States take X-rays out of the fear of being sued. On the other hand, many D.C.s go their entire careers without taking a single X-ray with no negative occurrences.

I'm not saying that X-rays are not often useful, because they are. But are they absolutely necessary in every case? You must make the best of a situation. If there is a contraindication to adjusting, you should be able to figure this out by way of history or initial examination.

In India, if there was some condition that was a contraindication to adjusting, I would just use a lower force technique, adjust elsewhere, or not adjust at all.

For example, a seven year-old boy came to me with low back pain. I sat him down on the table when I realized that a seven year-old should not be having low back pain. I inspected the area and found a fawns beard on his low back, representative of an underlying spina bifida. I did not need an X-ray to know that I should not thrust over that area.

In India, we adjusted more than 5,000 patients with numerous conditions. There were no negative incidents the entire trip.

Response #4: "They don't do the healing."

True, students are not as good as they will be one day or as good as many experienced chiropractors. Yet, we are members of the only profession in the world trained to detect and correct the vertebral subluxation. One adjustment by a student is much better than no adjustment at all.

It would be wonderful if every D.C. took a couple of weeks off a year and volunteered time to helping less fortunate people in far away lands. But this is not reality, and the reality is that chiropractic is bigger than us, bigger than our skill level. It is never the chiropractor who does the healing.

I think of the case I encountered of a man with torticollis who informed me that he had been in constant pain for more than two years following a motorcycle accident. He had been to numerous allopathic doctors in India, and spent many of his hard-earned rupees with no relief. After one adjustment, his pain was 50% better. After his second adjustment, his pain was totally gone.

He fell to the floor and kissed my feet as if I had done it. If there had been no language barrier, I would have explained to him about the innate intelligence within his body. I would have explained to him that he healed himself.

We experienced many "miracles" on our mission trip. Before we began our first day, our mission trip leader said something that went straight through my ears into my heart. He said to never question our ability to help people. By merely putting our hands on them, we were already helping them.

I didn't understand the significance of this statement until an elderly woman arrived at my table. She was crying and screaming and in constant respiratory distress. You could see and hear her struggle to take every single breath. I adjusted an upper thoracic subluxation, and her breathing immediately quieted down.

When she looked at me, a feeling came over my body that I still cannot explain. I was able to see pure light, pure energy in her eyes. I was given the gift of a glimpse into something much greater than myself. She was instantaneously transformed from a haggard old woman to an inexplicably beautiful entity.

At the time, I had no idea what I was experiencing. I still don't know for sure what it was. Yet, I don't believe that I or the woman will ever be the same. I realized at that moment that I, along with all chiropractors, have been put on this earth to serve a greater purpose than to fix cricks and aches.

Since I believe that we all have a deeper purpose, now every time I adjust someone, I am one subluxation closer to my dream of a subluxation-free world.

People need chiropractic, and it's our duty to deliver. We are the only ones capable of giving this gift. Chiropractic is not for chiropractors, but for the people.