February 2009

Stepping down ... but not walking away

by Dr. Terry A. Rondberg

It probably came as a shock to many people to learn that the board of directors of the World Chiropractic Alliance elected a new president recently and that I was stepping down from the position I've held since I founded the WCA in 1989. Contrary to what many of my detractors have long claimed, I don't "own" the organization or even rule it as a benevolent dictator. The WCA has always been run by a small but committed group of individuals who made the deliberate decision not to create a bloated bureaucracy that made any kind of quick action impossible.

For what it's worth, I voted for Dr. Richard Barwell along with the other officers of the board! I realized that it was time for me to step down and hand the leadership reins to someone better equipped to take on the challenging job of guiding the profession to a more progressive identity as a neurologically based health care system.

That doesn't mean I'm walking away from the WCA or the profession! I am now the CEO of the organization and as such I'll be the chief administrator and responsible for all the general management of the group and for translating the WCA's visions into reality. Dr. Barwell and the other officers and members of the Board of Directors will have the challenging task of determining the best way for our organization to carry on its mission of safeguarding the future of subluxation-centered chiropractic and the success and prosperity of its practitioners.

In the past, the WCA worked hard and diligently to protect our right to focus on the detection and correction of subluxations and to approach our great profession from a non-medical perspective. We fought back efforts of our enemies to force us to perform non-chiropractic treatments and tests and to forbid us from caring for children and asymptomatic patients. We struggled to combat anti-chiropractic propaganda and misinformation in the media and made significant progress in countering claims that chiropractic was linked to strokes.

We also battled head-to-head with those within our profession who agreed to medical gatekeeper systems that put obstacles in the way of people who wanted to see chiropractors. We served on members of government and private sector committees to make sure the views of non-medical chiropractic were not ignored or suppressed. We worked on federal, state and even international levels to prevent our enemies (and even some of our well-meaning but wrong-headed friends) from limiting us to treating musculoskeletal conditions.

We accomplished a lot in the past 20 years, but we all wanted to do still more. The introduction of revolutionary new instrumentation convinced us that chiropractic could finally realize the century old dream of addressing neurological issues rather than simply "moving bones." The mission of the WCA evolved to embrace this new paradigm and its infrastructure changed to reflect the new mission. Our board was expanded, reconstituted and redirected. And Dr. Barwell was elected as the new president to take up the baton and lead us into a more scientifically sound future.

As he noted, there are many things about the WCA that will be different, but one thing that won't change is our determination NOT to fall into the trap of so many other organizations and spend most of our time and energy building a bureaucracy rather than being about the business of promoting the profession. We're not adding a layer of elected officials who will battle each other every few years or put on a show of changing leadership by playing musical chairs. Decisions will still be made by a relatively small group of people who have the time and energy to really commit themselves to our efforts.

I'm sure the WCA's opponents will continue to carp and complain (as they have for 20 years) that we aren't a "democratic" organization. To them, I'll say what I've been saying for two decades: so what? Our members are far more interested in getting the job done than mailing in a proxy vote sheet once a year. As long as we protect their rights, help them succeed, and fight our opponents, they're happy with the setup. We may not have a huge membership but, unlike other groups, growing our organization is NOT our primary goal. Being bigger isn't as important as being better. That's why you don't get frequent and annoying mailings from the WCA asking you to join or donate money to us. We welcome new members who share our goals and want to help us meet them, but we don't expend a lot of our precious resources recruiting people just to have bragging rights about our size.

I've always been proud of the World Chiropractic Alliance, how it operates, and what it does. I'm even prouder now that it has taken the lead in this exciting new journey into neurologically based chiropractic. And I'm looking forward to two more decades with the group -- and it doesn't matter to me whether it's as CEO, dues-paying member, or chief bottle washer. I know that I'm doing my part to advance our great profession and safeguard BJ Palmer's "sacred trust."