Whenever a military campaign is failing, it is time to change strategy. It is quite evident that the medical profession has changed its strategy with regard to chiropractic in the last few years. With the growth of chiropractic, the loss of the antitrust suit (Wilk v. AMA), and the public’s willingness to question medical procedures and search for alternatives, medicine realized attacking chiropractic and calling us a bunch of unscientific quacks was no longer a viable approach. I do not know whether it was a concerted effort or how exactly this new strategy developed but it seems to be successful. To see the need for this new strategy they apparently noted two things about chiropractic, two things that do not speak well of our character. The first was that chiropractors wanted acceptance. We had fought for licensing laws and were constantly trying to improve our educational programs to gain acceptance. Wanting acceptance is not necessarily bad but the second thing they noted was that we, as a profession, were willing to do anything to gain that acceptance. The important thing is that, at some point, they stopped looking at chiropractic as a principle and began looking at it as a procedure. As a procedure, chiropractic is more or less acceptable to medicine, after all, the practice of medicine is based upon pragmatic procedures. They use most any procedure if it has been shown to work until it is found to do more harm than good or until a better procedure is found. Drugs and surgery are procedures. There is no philosophy or principle associated with medicine, none of significance, that is. Medicine really does not have a problem with our procedure. Osteopaths have been doing it for years. Physical therapists do some manipulation, as do physiatrists. Further, millions of people have gone to thousands of chiropractors for over 100 years, so there must be something to manipulating bones. Their problem is with our philosophy, the idea that the body can heal itself better when there is no interference in the nerve system due to vertebral subluxation. Manipulation is acceptable, if it is for the purpose of relieving minor joint problems. However, this “adjustment” with the so-called innate philosophy behind it, that is not acceptable to them. Be that as it may, medicine was convinced that they could get us to put aside that philosophy if they would acknowledge the value of our procedure. It was important though to refer to it as manipulation so as to remove any philosophical connotation. So here is the strategy that the medical doctors came up with: 1. Acknowledge the procedure, manipulation is good. 2. Agree that it is beneficial for certain people with certain musculoskeletal conditions. In other words, the medical doctors will agree that chiropractic is good for some back problems. Here is the key to their strategy. Did you ever notice when somebody says something bad about you that is not true, you jump up and down and protest the lie, but when somebody says something good about you that is not true, you are not likely to correct them? I think this is how the inflated numbers of patients seen by prominent speakers occurs. When a speaker is introduced and the person introducing him says, “He sees 1,000 patients a week, blah, blah, blah,” the speaker is not about to come on the platform and contradict that beautiful introduction. He would not say, “I would like to correct so and so. I really only see 700 patients a week not 1,000.” When the medical profession started saying nice things about us like we can help back problems, we said, “Thank you very much, can we get in your hospitals and treat some back problems?” What we should have said was, “Wait a minute, chiropractic is not about treating back problems. Here is what chiropractic is …” So there we were. How many readers have heard practice members say, “My doctor says it is good for me to come to you?” We have finally received the blessing of the medical fraternity. Of course, how many have had a practice member say that the doctor was endorsing that care for anything other than musculoskeletal problems let alone to enable the person’s inborn wisdom to be expressed more fully. The medical doctors do not even bring up the issue of the philosophical chiropractors or those who think they can cure everything (a misunderstanding of what we do). That is why an organization like the National Association of Chiropractic Medicine (NACM) has not grown. They see themselves as the medically rational approach to chiropractic. They would take a position acceptable to the doctors. Little did they realize that the rest of the profession would also take that position making them unnecessary. Chiropractic is a manipulation for joint problems. Of course, anyone with a brain can see the unfolding of the rest of medicine’s strategy. Keep the chiropractors out of the HMOs. Develop rehabilitation centers, then teach the physical therapists to manipulate or do it themselves. If things continue as they are, the rehabs will be able to hire out-of-work chiropractors to manipulate for them.
That is where we are today. We are there because that is where the majority of our profession, from the leadership, to the schools, to the practitioner in the field has chosen to be. Every time a chiropractor accepts a patient FOR a back problem, that misunderstanding is perpetuated and strengthened. Tell a lie long enough and people will start believing it. There are a few of us that are not into that model of chiropractic and unlike the rest are not willing to feed into it. Unless the majority of the profession agrees that they do not want and that they will not accept the role of a back doctor, things will only get worse. v16n3