There has been considerable discussion in recent months concerning whether chiropractors should be in hospitals taking care of patients. Clearly, those within our profession who have a medical objective, the treatment of medical conditions, would want access to a hospital and the use of its facilities. They cannot compete with the medical procedures and tools that the M.D. has available. What is surprising is that among the non-straight members of the chiropractic community there is any disagreement over hospital privileges. It is as logically an outgrowth of the disease-treating objective of mixing chiropractic as is the use of pharmaceuticals.
But what about the straight chiropractic profession. Should we be allowed to go into hospitals to adjust patients openly? Or should we continue to visit our patients during visiting hours, pull over the curtain and give our patients an adjustment under less than ideal circumstances. Surely it would be much better to have an adjusting facility where we could have the patient brought and where we could go during time convenient to our schedule and give them an adjustment. That is probably an ideal situation. Some straight chiropractors say that when hospitals recognize that every patient is better off with a good nerve supply and allow us to check every patient, then and only then do we belong in hospitals. That is an ideal situation but not very likely in the future at least not until we change the world’s and the hospital’s concern that hospitals are almost exclusively associated with sickness, disease, sick people and their treatment and straight chiropractic is trying to disassociate itself from those concepts.
Yet there is a group of professionals who seem to be able to walk into a hospital, care for patients almost whenever they and the patient want and are not even affiliated with the hospital. What’s more, their care is not associated with disease treatment. This group makes up the clergy. Apparently they have convinced hospital administrators and physicians that their ministrations are not dangerous to the patient and in fact may help the patient recover from his/her medical problem sooner. The medical community sees clearly that the clergy’s objectives are not the same as theirs and that medical care and spiritual ministering are in this situation perfectly compatible. The hospitals understand that spiritual counsel is not going to injure the patient or compromise his/her care. In those rare situations when the presence of a member of the clergy is inappropriate, the doctor so informs the cleric and in a spirit of cooperation the visit is postponed.
If we substitute the straight chiropractor for the cleric in the above paragraph we can see where straight chiropractic fits into a hospital setting. Straight chiropractors, like clergy, need not be affiliated with a hospital. Our care is not associated with disease treatment. Straight chiropractic care like spiritual help is not dangerous to the patient and having a good nerve supply may help the patient recover from his/her medical problem sooner. In those rare situations where straight chiropractic care is contraindicated (e.g., immediately after brain surgery), the straight chiropractor would be perfectly willing to postpone care.
Chiropractic is not a religion. But what we are doing for a person is almost as far removed from medicine as is spiritual help. We need to educate the medical profession to the philosophy of straight chiropractic and allow them the patient to determine the need for it in a hospital setting. If they understood our unique objective it would not be too difficult a task. If they do not understand our objective we will never get in there for the right reasons. We will continue to be allowed hospital privileges because the hospitals need the revenue chiropractors can generate by the care or because the physicians see us as limited care specialists with a little more expertise than a physical therapist. We do not need to be in hospitals on those terms. v9n2