Which is better, to live and practice among people who think chiropractors are at best worthless or at worst quacks because that’s what they have been told all their lives and have never had it clearly explained to them… or to live among people who think chiropractic has its place in the healing arts treating bad backs and stiff necks? Why?
Option C, among people who have been educated what chiropractic is and the objective of that chiropractor. If you want the definition and objective I’m sure it can be found somewhere on http://www.chiropracticoutsidethebox.com
If you’re practicing among people who think chiropractic doesn’t work or people who think it’s about bad backs and stiff necks, then that’s what the chiropractor is educating them on!
The people that surround and support the chiropractor’s office does so in the goal of what the chiropractor has educated them on!
Option C
Wheww! Great question……It might be better to deal with the ones who think chiropractors are worthless and are quacks. These people are strongly opinionated and at the least, show they have the potential to think for themselves. Getting to know them better (by establishing a relationship with them) can result in subtle opportunities to plant thoughts that might lead them to thinking differently. And these types of people are great for the profession when that starts to happen. When they are strong in thought in one way, they will be strong in thought in another way. But I wouldn’t discard the other group – there are advantages to them already accepting chiropractic’s role in their lives.
It does not matter whom is being lived among, it matters who it is living among whom. Be a chiropracTOR and practice chiropracTIC. Truth is truth even if no one believes it. A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it.
It depends on the goals of the individual chiropractor. If they want to just enjoy their work and have a nice lifestyle then option 2 seems best at first. I have heard opinions that (as an example) back pain may be the reason to get the patient in the door and then you can start to re-educate the patient on what chiropractic really is afterwards- that doesn’t seem to be part of this option though as you worded it.
If, however, they want to practice chiropracTIC and help develop the profession based on the principles of the profession then the first option is best. Sometimes skeptics make the best patients because any placebo effect is minimized the results are more likely to be attributed to chiropractic.
At this point in my experience, I absolutely have no preference in who I tell the chiropractic message to. I have been totally “floored” by the responses I have received from either of those 2 groups. The best response can come from the worst skeptic and vice versa.
Regardless of who they are or what they think, they need to hear the chiropractic message.
Given just the two choices above, I would prefer to live and practice among people who think chiropractic has its place in the healing arts treating bad backs and stiff necks.
My reasons:
1) Just because I live and practice among people who think like this does not mean I have to practice that way.
2) People will at least be coming to me (unlike the other group) and give me the opportunity to educate them to the optimal benefits of lifetime, non therapeutic chiropractic service.
3) the vast majority who come to us, at least initially, already DO think like this and gives us daily opportunity to clearly educate them.
4) I believe there are many more who fall into group 2 than group 1 and I have no desire to waste time or energy on those who truly think like group 1.
5) eventually, many of those in group 1 will find themselves in a circumstance, bad back or a stiff neck, where they WILL end up in one of our offices (ha ha) and again, we will have that grand opportunity to set the record straight on what we do and what we do not do and how what we do will benefit them greatly.
ps…I wrote the above at 11:17 pm, not 3:17am as the post inidcates…now I’m off to bed đŸ™‚
Tom, and others. since our posts come from and go around the world we decided to use Grenwich Mean Time (GMT), that little city in England which has the World Clock. If you think it is confusing to you…. sometimes I post a thought before I’ve even thought of it!! Although some people say that everything I write is without thinking.
without a doubt, the people who have no idea what we do are the easier ones to explain chiropractic to… the people who think we treat symptoms, especially neck and back symptoms, are much harder to (re)educate in our purpose. put me into the neighbor hood where I’m thought a quack. the door to the adjusting room is held open by a doorstop which is simply a rock with a duck painted on it… the only words printed on the rock are ‘quack – quack’
that being said, Terri Galant, DC 06/07/2011, 5:49 pm: has it nailed we think!