July 2007

Do you enjoy being a back cracker?

by Dr. Kevin Pallis and Dr. Ed Plentz

With all the national media attention and parental concern about children's disorders (autism, learning disabilities, anxiety, etc.) where do we stand as chiropractors? Is it none of our business? Are we merely back pain doctors? Is there a difference in a child's and an adult's nerve system? Running away from our responsibility and heritage as family DCs won't help here. While hiding from the truth is easy to do, it's never comfortable. If you want a different identity, and the corresponding rise in stature and income, then you must be willing to stand up for yourself and your identity as a family chiropractor.

So many DCs get frustrated with practice members who don't get the "big idea." Yet, it's very hard to it when the chiropractor's focus is only on symptoms ...symptom and pain posters, symptom and pain pamphlets, symptom and pain exams, symptom and pain report of findings. What we focus on becomes our reality.

You're asking your practice members to identify you as a back cracker. No wonder more children aren't under care! If you invested in patient education for your practice members, they'd gladly bring in sick and non‑symptomatic children. All the musculoskeletal relief in the world won't change the health paradigm.

What's our responsibility to children? Leaders of our profession may tiptoe around this delicate question but there's just one acceptable answer. We must hold children's health sacred. If any concept, idea or philosophy of society is not aimed toward the next generation, it won't stand the test of time.

It's time for chiropractors to step us when...children are allergic to the very food that sustains life, to learning ...11 year‑old girls are being vaccinated for cervical cancer... females don't realize that infertility is caused by a lack of health. Parents of the world are calling for health leaders and all they get is the socially accepted back pain relief model from the majority of DCs.

It's time for chiropractors to stop trying to fit in with the outdated socially accepted allopathic model of wait for disease, diagnose, then drug, amputate, radiate or dispose of. It's time for us as chiropractors to stand out by creating and having the courage to stand behind our vision of health, not disease. A new paradigm for the world to live by, embrace, and express. We aren't against anything. We are for chiropractic.

Many readers are now familiar with "Love Has No Color." We're demonstrating to the world the effect of chiropractic care and community service on a reservation in Montana. We've created this world project to raise awareness about the disturbing and appalling conditions on reservations. When people living in poverty become healthier, the result is the same as when anyone gets healthier ‑‑ healthier people equals a healthier planet.

And, healthier people do fewer stupid things. They contribute more to society, they believe in themselves, are more purposeful, better parents, create more opportunities for themselves as well as others, etc. Because of many people's preoccupation with and brainwashing concerning disease, they fail to understand that when people get healthier, there'll be far less poverty, less prejudice, less crime, less conflict, etc.

As a DC, if you want to limit your vision to two vertebrae, that's your right. No matter what kind of man‑made beliefs and laws keep chiropractors restricted to a musculoskeletal pain relief model, we need to recognize a higher law ‑‑ the inalienable right to equality and freedom. Every man, woman and child deserves to be healthy. Health is everybody's business. It doesn't matter the reasons for our country being steeped in the belief of disease, limitation and lack. In the land of freedom, why aren't we as chiropractors standing up for what we truly believe in?

So many of our coaching family members admit that prior to joining our program, they were adjusting their children at home, since birth. However, they'd failed in their attempts to educate parents. Once they realized that parents wanted their children healthy, they had just never heard about children and chiropractic, they started believing in chiropractic and stopped worrying about public acceptance.

Our vision of family health from birth to death won't be contained by any geographic, political, or philosophical boundaries or borders. It's bigger than any of them. The ICA, ACA, WCA... it doesn't matter. What matters is health for everybody, not adult musculoskeletal pain only. It's time to expand and enlarge, not to contract and shrink from our societal responsibilities. The children of the world (and their parents) are waiting for the next generation of chiropractors to bring this new vision to the world.

(The New Renaissance is a movement of passionate chiropractors dedicated to changing the world. The leader in patient education since 1977, the Mentor IV Coaching Program is a step‑by‑step navigational guide that embodies the very essence of The New Renaissance vision of healthier people creating a healthier world. Without patient education, your patients won't "get it." To learn more about The New Renaissance, contact world headquarters at 800‑525‑3879.)