PACE

I recently read a very disappointing article, only because of the person who wrote it and the school she represents.  Further, this person was associated some time ago with a straight school that the CCE put out of business, so I thought she would have a different perspective.

The article was about the formation of PACE (Providers of Approved Continuing Education), a new program for accrediting CE programs.  PACE is approved by and appears to  be an arm of the FCLB. According to the article, 22 states have approved PACE and 3 states are in the process of application to PACE.  Currently there are eight approved PACE providers and six in the process.

            The entire process is another example of bureaucratic control of our profession. We are already forced to get a license even though we’ve graduated from an accredited chiropractic college.   That’s the law which they believe that is necessary to protect the public.  Added to that, we now have re-licensure every so many years, depending on the state where the chiropractor is practicing.  Re-licensure requires continuing education (CE) credits…credits from a program that is approved by the state…which now needs to recognize a  provider of continuing education (PACE).

Still following?  Good!  Because we have not even gotten to the people who will be conducting the CE seminars!  To conduct a seminar, you must be approved by a provider. We are told that it is a low-cost way of streamlining the CE programs for re-licensure, not a way of putting proprietary providers out of business.  I’m sorry, I just don’t buy that.  It seems to me this is one more series of hoops that we have to jump through as chiropractors in order to assure something that is already assumed, we are competent.  If we are not, it cannot be assured by CE credits taken over a weekend.  If we are competent as chiropractors, we do not need it.  If we are not as competent as medical doctors, then we need approved programs that will not be directed at making competent chiropractors, but in making us into competent physicians.  That is what this is all about.  They must be sure that our continuing education is not about chiropractic, but about medicine. I see this as a way to put a noose around the neck of people who do not want to practice in the ACA, CCE, FCLB model.  It is also another way of extracting money from chiropractors and to reduce our numbers and limit those going into the profession.  The public is no safer today than they were 75 years ago.  The chiropractors are no more competent in locating, analyzing and correcting vertebral subluxations than they were 75 years ago.  Perhaps less so on both counts because we are trying to practice something (medicine) that is inherently dangerous even when practiced by those competent in its practice.  That is not us as far as those in charge of the profession are concerned.  But they are working to make us at least as competent as the medics, which they see as an improvement for our profession.  A medical doctor needs continuing education to practice medicine correctly.  No amount of continuing education will enable a chiropractor to be a competent medical doctor.  What we have is a group of men who are putting a stranglehold on our profession supposedly to resolve a problem that does not exist and they are charging us for it.  It will be like most government programs or quasi-government programs.  Someone will make lots of money and it will add one more layer of bureaucracy, inefficiency cost, and waste.  The public, the profession and the schools will be no better off for it.  Thank you very much.