The State Board of Chiropractic Examiners are part of the bureaucracy and as such are not elected officials. They are charged with the task of being the public protector against the chiropractic profession. In the end they are chiropractors under the influence of powerful chiropractors and organizations who have their own agenda/desires for the future of the profession, not necessarily what is best for the public,
They definitely have their own agendas. However, they are not without oversight. In my state of WA, our Chiropractic Quality Assurance Commission (CQAC) tried to add ECG/EKG to the “approved procedures list” by an administrative action. (This was done because the WSCA failed legislatively to add DOT and sports physicals to our scope of practice.)
The state legislature found out that this happened (every board is being watched – state oversight) and was FURIOUS. They saw it as the CQAC over-reaching their authority (which it was) and, basically, put them in their place. ECG/EKG was promptly removed from the list by the CQAC.
Bryson, I’m not sure what you are saying. Who is the CQAC…elected officials or appointed bureaucrats? Who is the WSC non or therapeutic chiropractors. Who is overseeing who?
Well there is a necessity to protect the public from chiropractors who claim to cure a medical disease.
They need to get the concept of dis-ease and continual chiropractic alignment.
All we do is to align the body and the spine so it can function as it could.
I have found the phenomenon of TMITWDITO (the most important thing we do is the orientation) in chiropractors office to surely be fulfilling a deep human and social need. It is deemed necessary for chiropractic’s survival, it seems. To tell the story over and over and over and over again in as many creative ways as doable is the corner stone of the foundational platform on which chiropractic stands. The innate intelligence of the body within the context of the ADIO viewpoint MUST be proclaimed to the world. Chiropractic’s basic science has 33 absolute principles which created a platform based on rational logic and deductive reasoning. –
– Throughout chiropractic’s short history, mixing chiropractors were more often in positions of power and privilege, whereas traditional straight chiropractors were often unfairly subjugated. Traditional straight chiropractors, therefore, more naturally learned a path of chiropractic service (to adjust by hands only to get sick people well) through their “inferior” position to the mixers. –
– We recognize, in objective chiropractic, universal patterns of wisdom that need to be taught to the young chiropractors in their early “practice building” stages. This means to thoroughly teach them the 33 principles of chiropractic’s basic science, that TMITWDITO and show them HOW to tell the story over and over and over and over again in as many creative ways as doable. That requires humility… when there is ONLY one person in your audience, its 8 o’clock at night, you’re tired and you WANT to go home (ask Joe D.;) So you put your needs aside and you DO IT one more time. WHY? BECAUSE it IS important to that ONE person. It may transform her life forever. Indeed TMITWDITO!!! –
– This is the rather philosophical conclusion: Unless the straight chiropractor is led into journeys of humility and powerlessness, he will invariably misuse power. He becomes a loose cannon with chiropractic, even dangerous to the profession, always seeking his own dominative power and advancement to the neglect of others. The human inclination to narcissism and arrogance has to be exposed, humbled, and used for good purposes. –
– Chiropractic’s basic science and philosophy clearly taught from the beginning about the orientation, the necessity of being specific in checking spines, humility, servant leadership, and to be non-therapeutic. Chiropractors resisted chiropractic’s basic science every time, and so we had to finally give the 33 principles another look in order to show chiropractors HOW to make the journey and tell them, “Follow the 33, they are the AUTHORITY of chiropractic.” But chiropractors have preferred to hear something the 33 principles never mentioned: “Get people well.” Getting people well and tweaking it to fit the health care system in order to be accepted by the medical profession is rather harmless and risk-free (osteopathy did it rather smoothly by abandoning their principles); however, practicing the chiropractic objective, which is deduced from the 33 principles of its basic science, changes everything. –
– The clear message of the 33 principles has not been taught with much seriousness in chiropractic schools. Following their simplicity and authority were never expected of the faculty and administration —certainly not of the higher board of trustees—and, therefore, how could we ask it of the rest of the student body? We have to train the future leaders because they can only ask of others what they themselves have done first. Once we saw the professional state as a place of advancement instead of an ADIO service, once the D.C. degree was not a form of initiation but a continuation of professional patterns, the authentic telling of the story through the orientation became the exception rather than the norm. –
– I have often thought that this ”non-telling” of the story was like a secret social contract between the chiropractors and the patients, as we shake hands across the the adjusting room . We agree not to tell the patients anything that would make them uncomfortable, and they will keep coming for our services. It is a nice deal, because once the story is told over and over and over and over again in as many creative ways as doable, I doubt if the bureaucracy would be filled. Rather, we, ALL of us, might be out on the streets telling the message. The discernment and the call to a life of service, to a profession that gives itself away instead of simply protecting and procuring for itself in the name of chiropractic, is what chiropractors should be about. Right now, so many chiropractor are teaching the people how to be co-dependent with them. It becomes job security instead of true empowerment. Remember, anyone—male or female—who has not gone on journeys of humility and powerlessness will invariably abuse power.