September 2005

Why can't we all just get along?

by Ben Lerner, DC.

Several years ago, a hospital in my area wanted to investigate the possibility of giving hospital privileges to a select group of chiropractors. While I personally prefer to keep people away from hospitals, I figured it couldn't hurt to go inside and try and help those that were in get out.

According to the people heading up the program, this had never been done in the state of Florida and they were looking to set precedent. The idea was that several of us would be on staff and do rounds with a particular focus on personal‑injury patients. The group that was chosen was a mix of "pain‑relief‑focused chiropractors" and "subluxation‑based, wellness chiropractors."

The initial meetings went well up until the point of discussing adjusting all of the hospital patients for wellness and not just the personal injury patients. At that suggestion, the leader of the pain‑relief chiropractors, a guy heading up the movement in Florida to allow DCs to prescribe drugs and give injections, objected. Upon his objection, someone from the wellness group, who hates pain DCs, blew up, began yelling at him, and a massive argument ensued.

After listening to these two go at it for several minutes, the hospital administrator said, "You're the stupidest profession in the world. The medical doctors in our hospital all dislike one another and constantly disagree. However, they will never stab the other in the back, turn each other in, or do anything to hurt the hospital or their profession. You people are a liability and we cannot allow you in our hospital."

Even birds are smart enough with their bird brains to know that if you fly together in a group, it's twice as easy ‑‑ you go faster and you can fly twice as far. In most of our chiropractic organizations and colleges, everyone is out to prove the other wrong at all costs to the profession. At the state level, many boards and doctors exist purely to stop and punish those who practice differently than they do. We may be the only profession in the world that hates peers they never met and assumes the worst based on a difference in philosophy, chiropractic college, technique, practice‑management organization, etc.

I've finally matured enough in my life to where I personally don't dislike even one percent someone who's from another college, practice management group, practices differently than I do, or who has a separate philosophy. I'm not going to break from my integrity, but I don't need to ask them to break from theirs either. That makes me at least as smart as a medical doctor, realizing I'm not on "Team Ben," I'm on "Team Chiropractic." Together we win, apart, we lose. Stay as we are and that hospital administrator is right, we are stupid.

Remember who you are.

(Dr. Ben Lerner and Dr. Greg Loman created Body by God and Teach the World About Chiropractic in an effort to change our culture and move the world toward the power of chiropractic thinking. They are the authors of "One Minute Wellness: The Natural Health & Happiness System that Never Fails.")