There is a place for whole brain thinking. Intuition and creativity have their place. They are not to be used, however, where there are standards, absolutes and established and proper ways of doing things, or where there is an authority unless they are functioning within the guidelines of that authority. We must have authority or else we will have anarchy. History, especially the history of chiropractic, has shown that to be true.
WHO can identify the chiropractic authority?
Dr. Lessard,
I have learned that in the end, I must recognize that the respective State Boards of Examiners (and other regulatory bodies around the world) ultimately decide the definition and scope of Chiropractic where we are licensed to practice.
I would respectfully submit that the governmental authorities responsible are the authority on this one.
Don, the state board only determines the limits of your practice. You must practice within those limits. That does not mean you must do everything within those limits. Every medical doctor is trained and legally allowed to deliver a baby. Most do not choose to do it without specialized training. If you were allowed to and even trained to prescribe drugs would you choose to do it?
Joe,
I always enjoy your examples.
If most every medical doctor is trained and legally within their scope to deliver a baby yet choose not, that seems to be a personal choice for their practice and life.
There are still those who persue the avenue of specialization (additional residency and training) to enable them to do so. This seems to be the case for groups with the advanced practice/prescription rights ambition.
My personal choice is that I wish not to seek prescriptive right for my practice. I can’t speak for others though.
What I find interesting and wish to discuss is the subject of MINIMUM standards of care. I believe the government not only has a hand in this as well.
It would seem that if the state boards/regulatory bodies define the limits of scope of practice, then there are ( or will be) a push that follows to establish minimum accepted standards to care.
In other words, governing bodies or even malpractice carriers may choose to raise the bar of minimum standards to care in the interest of public safety. Thoughts?
Don,
What you are talking about is the limits of practice from State to State, pretty much the same as the limits of adaptation from person to person. These limits are NOT the chiropractic authority. WHAT is the chiropractic authority?
Hey Joe,
Where would DD fit into this post? Obviously he did not follow standards, absolutes and established and proper ways of doing things, nor did he submit to an authority or function within the guidelines of that authority. DD did demonstrate creativity but I’m not sure intuition would be the proper term.
That’s a good question Steve. I would maintain that DD did follow “standards, absolutes and proper ways of doing things.” Just because everybody is doing it doesn’t mean it’s the proper way (how many times do you hear that (everybody’s doing it argument as a parent) DD recognized that the authority of the body was not the educated brain of some doctor/healer but the innate intelligence of the body. The standards were the 33 principles that were absolutes, not concepts that changed from day to day or year to year, like the cause of a lack of health was in the night air, miasmas, evil spirits, germs or the environment. He got back to the real issue, the cause was within.
Sometimes, just getting back to the basics is the most creative activity of all. Martin Luther did it and we call it the Reformation. I remember reading about a basketball coach who wanted to learn the late John Wooden’s secret for success in building the UCLA basketball dynasty. He bought Wooden’s book and at first was disappointed that it was all about teaching players the basics of the game. You collect talented athletes and not allow them to be individual stars but teach them “the proper way of doing things”, functioning as a team. Do that and you can build a program that will reach the pinnacle of success for 10 straight years (National Champions). It was not one or two stars that created UCLA’s success. It was being part of a system, a system that was more important than the individual. Hazzard, Goodrich, Alcindor (Kareem), Worthy, Walton, the fellow who later played the black cop on Hill Street Blues and many others could have been individual stars anywhere but it was the system and their willingness to subordinate their individuality and follow the system that allowed them to reach their objective, not just being a great player but being a great team and part of a dynasty that will probably never be matched in basketball or any sport.
When chiropractors learn the system (and it’s not a technique or practice building tool) then and only then will chiropractic be great as a profession. The system in chiropractic is the philosophy and the objective. It seems that too many chiropractors want to be individual stars rather than part of a system, a system that says the innate intelligence of the body is the only star.
Did Naismith (inventor of the game of basketball) fully understand John Wooden’s system? No but he gave us something, the foundation, that could be refined into something that would have lasting success. DD gave us that which could be and is being refined into something great. OSC and this blog is, hopefully, part of that refining process.
Hold on Joe,
DD went against all know standards and his authority was god or that individualize portion of god within the body. The 33 had yet to be developed . His thinking was separate and distinct, for his times. He established new standards and absolutes that had been unknown up until the time he developed them, except maybe by Dr Jim Atkinson
I would say Wooden fully understood Naismith’s game. As you wrote it, how could the former “understand” the latter.
Steve, DD was not interested in society’s standards but the standard of TRUTH. ADIO was his authority and the 33 principles existed long before BJ and RWS codified them. He didn’t, as you suggest, “establish new standards and absolutes”. Do you really think the Major Premise did not exist or was unknown before chiropractic or that no one understood that “there is no process that does not require time” before 1927? That would be like saying gravity did not exist until an apple fell off a tree and hit Newton on the head. Wooden Reformed basketball into what James Naismith originally intended it to be a team sport not 5 guys running around showing off their individual abilities..
You need boundaries, identity, safety, and some degree of order and consistency to think outside the box and start a NEW system. You have to have boundaries to move beyond boundaries, without dropping the boundaries! This is paradox.
Hey Claude, are you saying, you have to be in the box to think outside the box??? Are you one of those guys that says, “you have to know pain before you can experience pleasure”? Did you tell your kids “this is going to hurt me more than it will hurt you”?….And Joe wants to argue that basketball was not designed to be a team sport?…You and Joe are a PAIR-A-DOCS
Steve,
You have a great sense of humor! 🙂 –
Without law in some form, and also without butting up against that law, we cannot move forward easily and naturally. Chiropractic is only 118 1/2 years old. It’s barely a toddler compare to other professions. The rebellions of two-year-olds and teenagers are in our hardwiring, and we have to have something hard and half-good to rebel against. We need a worthy opponent against which we test our mettle. As the great poet Rilke put it, “When we are only victorious over small things, it leaves us feeling small.” If chiropractic does not allow any questioning or rebelling, it may appear stable and secure and might even create order, and for that it will pay a huge price for it in terms of development. DD, and even more BJ, were constantly butting against the status quo, as you mentioned earlier as they were creating and developing something NEW. Yes Steve, you have to have to be in a box order to think OUTSIDE the box. I believe that it was the Dali Lama WHO chose to proclaim: “Learn and obey the rules very well, so you will know how to break them properly. 😉
The fact that DD was not restricted by societies standards was the very point of my response to your opening statement. DD did in fact establish new standards/absolutes. 1. The use of the transverse process as a lever during the adjustment. 2. The individualized portion of the “all wise” that we now refer to as innate intelligence (a term he coined). 3. That this innate intelligence generated a mental impulse in the brain. 4. The tone of a nerve determined it’s ability to transmit the MI from the brain to the tissues of the body. 5. That disease is a matter of too much or not enough functionating.
The fact that DD went to jail demonstrates his lack of respect for the “authorities”. His moral obligation was to serve god by reconnecting man the spiritual with man the physical. So in effect, he practiced ADIO with out ever using or understanding that expression, much like the 33 principles.