August 2005

It's only natural that they hate us

by Dr. Terry A. Rondberg

Imagine driving to your office each day and having to pass a billboard that reads "WARNING: Chiropractic Adjustments Can Kill or Permanently Disable You."

Seeing this sign would make me sick. Knowing that thousands ‑‑ even millions ‑‑ of other commuters would see it would make me mad.

That's why doctors around the country mobilized so quickly in protest against the billboard that was paid for by an online organization called "Neck911USA," billing itself as "international volunteer group of individuals who provide consultations on complications due to neck manipulation."

The group's website fails to identify any of the "volunteers" involved in this anti‑chiropractic effort and the whole thing appears to be little more than an aggressive way to solicit possible lawsuit plaintiffs. Initial reports indicated that the website (and the "organization") was put together by Dr. Murray Katz of Canada, whose bitter hatred for chiropractic is legendary.

But, in the long run, it doesn't really matter who put up the sign or started the group since it's just another indication of the desperate measures some members of the medical profession are taking to try to turn the tide. The fact they feel the need to remain anonymous is further indication of their desperation. People who believe in the rightness of their actions don't mind signing their names.

But whoever they are, they have good reason to feel desperate. In the last few years, we've passed several important milestones that scare the pants off them. I think the real turning point was back in 1997, when the use of alternative health care began to soar. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, some 83 million Americans used some form of alternative medicine to preserve and maintain their health in 1997, an increase of one‑third over the numbers reported in 1990.

Even before that (in 1992), the National Institutes of Health added a division that is now known as the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). But it didn't really rev up its efforts until later in the decade.

By last year, more than one‑third of all US adults were using some form of CAM, according to an NCCAM survey ‑‑ and half said they thought "CAM would be interesting to try."

Perhaps the most critical finding of the survey was that about 28% of adults used CAM because they believed conventional medical treatments would not help them with their health problem. This is a reversal of previous findings that CAM users were not, in general, dissatisfied with conventional medicine. Now, they're not just walking in the direction of CAM, they're running away from medicine.

And things aren't going to change anytime soon. A report developed by the Institute for Alternative Futures noted that by the year 2010 at least two‑thirds of the US population will be using some form of non‑medical health care.

Suppose a third of your patients suddenly switched to a non‑chiropractic form of health care and half of them started leaning that way. Imagine, too, that that number would double in less than five years. Now you can see why the medical and pharmaceutical companies are scared and desperate.

Making matters worse, several medical experts have recently published bestselling books exposing how dangerous materia medica can be. A few that stand out: "The Truth About the Drug Companies," by Marcia Angell, MD, former editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine; "The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers" by Katherine Greider; "On The Take: How Medicine's Complicity with Big Business Can Endanger Your Health" by Jerome Kassirer; and "Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine" by John Abramson. (By the way, I recommend you put copies of all these in your waiting room. It's better than letting your patients skim through all the drug ads in People magazine. You can order each of these books from the WCA website at www.worldchiropracticalliance.org).

The public is becoming disenchanted (finally!) with the medical "drug it or cut it" approach. They're tired of paying hundreds of dollars for a week's worth of pills that might do them more harm than good and they're sick (literally) of being treated with less compassion and consideration than their dogs get from their veterinarians.

The medical system is broken and won't be fixed anytime in the near future. That means chiropractors have an ideal opportunity to march to the front of the line and offer the world what it needs most: a health care system that works for all people.

We need to critically examine every factor that has caused the failure of the medical model, and offer a true alternative. Specifically, we need to:

Keep the passion alive. As Madeline Behrendt, DC, pointed out in a recent research article for the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research, "Chiropractic is a lifestyle. It is not a profession that is just worn at work and then can be unbuttoned and tossed on a hanger at home. Chiropractic is merged with one's personal being, one's essence. Chiropractic attracts those with great hands, hearts, and minds..." Let chiropractic be your lifestyle and at the core of your existence.

Care about our patients. We need to constantly provide a truly caring and compassionate wellness environment that views patients as people, not money‑generating machines. In almost every survey of patient satisfaction, DCs rank higher than MDs ‑‑ based both on outcomes and on the emotional response to chiropractors' greater sense of compassion and caring.

Educate, educate, educate. Never stop the patient education process. Use every tool you can get your hands on ‑‑ patient education brochures, DVDs, posters, community presentations and talks, public health screenings, newspaper articles, and visits to local schools. We're reaching the tipping point of awareness about chiropractic. The next patient education lecture you give could be the one that tips the scales completely in our direction.

Stress the triad. You have to give equal weight to all three parts of the chiropractic triad: Art, Philosophy, and Science. Don't sacrifice one for the other (and never compromise any of them just to please an insurance company!). Practice and enhance your art of giving adjustments or providing care ... keep on purpose through a sound understanding of chiropractic philosophy ... stress science by following evidence‑based practice guidelines and contributing to chiropractic research efforts.

Look to the future. Incredibly, there are still some DCs who are caught in a time warp and think it would be beneficial to be more like medical doctors (who are, increasingly, realizing the benefits of being more like chiropractors). Dispensing pills and focusing on disease treatment and symptom relief is what got the medical profession in its current situation. This is NOT something we want to emulate.

As one intriguing website, Phrenicea.com (www.phrenicea.com/chiropractic.htm) ‑‑ that presents predictions about ultimate outcome of the Internet and biotechnology revolutions ‑‑ puts it: "Chiropractic as alternative medicine? No way!!! (In the future) chiropractic is not only considered primary care, it's just about the only physical care that's required.... The roaming chiropractor uses finesse and technique on bone, muscle and sinew ... Thus, with spectacular irony, the entire medical establishment was turned on its head. Nontraditional‑alternative‑complementary‑holistic practitioners of once‑questionable modalities supplanted the pretentious prescribers and cutters in what could only be considered a splendid coup de grace."

Now that's a vision of the future I can live with!