It amazes me how we can hear something and it will not impress us until we have heard it three or four or even ten times. This is a great reason why we should not be reticent in repeating our philosophy to patients. How often do we hear patients say, “You know, I finally understand what you are saying!” Recently, I heard Reggie make a statement on tape. I have heard him make the same statement many times. He was talking about adjusting spines to treat back problems and he said that it was not chiropractic, it was “manipulative medicine.” In the past when he has said that, I would say to myself, “Right Reg, you know that and I know that but the average backache chiropractor does not accept that.” Today, his statement made a different impression on me. Perhaps in the past I accepted Reggie’s statement on his authority, but this time I thought about it from a logical standpoint. If osteopaths “adjust” to relieve back problems and medical doctors “adjust” to relieve back problems, then it must be manipulative medicine. We talk about the medical doctors stealing chiropractic but we are helpless to do anything about it. Why? Because what they are doing is not chiropractic, it is the treatment of disease, it is medicine.
Our profession is stuck in a Catch-22. We worry that the medical doctors and the physical therapists will steal chiropractic, yet we cannot press the issue. If we do, it may dawn on someone that what they are doing is medicine, albeit drugless. Therefore what we are doing (i.e., treating conditions by adjusting spines) is also medicine. They are not stealing chiropractic, they are just asserting their right to practice a form of medicine that they had the right to perform all along. It just so happens that they have only recently begun to do it and we have been doing it for 100 years. It is still medicine and still their domain. They were treating disease before us.
If it is chiropractic, what makes it chiropractic? Is it chiropractic just because a chiropractor does it? If a chiropractor performed surgery would, that make it chiropractic? Of course, that is not logical. The issue is not, “Well, that is Reggie’s opinion” or “That is your opinion,” the issue is what is logical, and what is illogical? It makes sense that chiropractic and medicine are not the same thing and hence, should not be attempting to achieve the same objective. I am very comfortable with this logic, but I am also aware of the fact that some/many people are not. If we do not differentiate the two professions by their objective, then how would we differentiate them? I am willing to agree to search for a way to define our profession only if it is as logical as defining it by its objective. What other ways can we define chiropractic? By the way the state defines it? That would be allowing politicians to decide what chiropractic is. Should each of us define it the way we want? That would be anarchy and the public would never gain an understanding of it. We would have to forget about public education programs. We might be able to develop a public relations program to explain how great our education is in chiropractic, but they would still need to know the purpose of that education. Is it to treat medical conditions druglessly or is it something else?
It is not so important that we define chiropractic as it is that we determine the means by which we will or we can define it, one that makes sense. If there are any suggestions other than by its objective, I would like to hear them. In fact, I would like to make this a challenge. I would like to see the ICA, ACA or anyone else come up with a way of defining chiropractic that is better than by its objective? Perhaps readers or friends of readers can put their suggestions on the Foundation’s Message Board (our web address is on the front page) for our consideration. The challenge is out there. I will look forward to these proposals. v14n3