Without doubt the most misunderstood, overlooked and little emphasized fact in chiropractic today is the idea that chiropractic is different than anything else. The public surely does not understand that concept. In this day when people are talking about alternatives to medicine, chiropractic is hardly ever viewed as an alternative. We are seen as mainstream back pain care. The alternatives do not want us, we are too mainstream. I am not suggesting that we should be viewed as an alternative. We are different than them. The point is that we are not even viewed as different enough to be classified as an alternative (which is really only a different means of achieving the same objective).
The most difficult task in educating the public about chiropractic is convincing people to view us in a different light. They cannot seem to get the idea that we are not about sickness and disease, and we are not interested in relieving their symptoms. Chiropractic is not another approach to the same objective. We are different. This is about their life, about experiencing greater potential in life by having an interference to the proper function of the nerve system removed.
Medicine does not view us as different. Most of the problems we have had with medicine over the years have been due to their misconception that we were trying to do the same thing that they were, only with what they viewed as an inferior method and not nearly the training. We have spent the last 30 years improving our training and appropriating their methods in an effort to convince them. They have never grasped the idea that chiropractic is not an alternative or a substitute for medical care. It is a unique service that everyone needs, even those under medical care. The idea that medicine is beginning to accept chiropractic on a limited level is cause for great joy among some chiropractors, but they have not accepted us based upon our difference. They have only accepted us to the degree that we are willing to abrogate the uniqueness of our approach and accept a limited role in the health care delivery system, taking care of minor and uncomplicated back problems. If we are willing to play a minor role in medical conditions, like the dentist or the podiatrist, then we can gain acceptance.
The last group which does not recognize us as different (and to our profession’s shame) is the one that fails the worst to understand our difference. It is the chiropractic profession itself. Most of our profession has never grasped the idea that chiropractic is different. If it is to succeed in gaining worldwide acceptance, it cannot attempt to compete with medicine. Even if we could compete and replace medicine as the number one healing art, cornering 51% of the market (and the whole idea sounds delusional), what about the 49% that stay with medicine? Do we want to condemn them to a life of less than it should be because they think they need to choose one or the other? This is not a Hertz/Avis competition or a Coke/Pepsi battle. This involves the lives of fellow human beings! Making them think they need to choose medicine or chiropractic may be the difference between life and death. It essentially denies them care as much as if you locked them out of the office. Do we really want to do that? Have we been hurting more people than we help over the past century because of our insistence that chiropractic care must be undertaken INSTEAD of medicine and some choose not to make that switch? If you need a rental car, you have a choice and you can only drive one car at a time. If you want to drink cola, you have a choice. The only alternative to chiropractic is to live a life of less than full expression.
Chiropractic is unique. It is different. If our history teaches us anything, it is that we can not and should not be confused with anything else. The sooner we learn that lesson, the sooner we can reach our place in society.