One of the major problems that faces the straight chiropractic movement is convincing young people entering the colleges and the profession in general of the advantage of practicing straight chiropractic. This problem occurs because many are drawn to the profession for reasons other than those consistent with straight chiropractic. There are basically three reasons why an individual chooses to become a chiropractor. Some choose the profession for one of the reasons, some two and others all three. Understanding these reasons may help us to focus our attention in the proper areas in attracting the most desirable people into our profession.
The first reason why chiropractic is chosen as a career is to make money. It is no secret that many chiropractors are making great incomes. Considering the length of education and amount of hours spent practicing per week, chiropractic is much more lucrative than any of the other so-called health fields. One can make more money for a smaller expenditure of time practicing chiropractic than medicine or dentistry. Unfortunately, if making money is the reason for entering chiropractic practice more can be made practicing mixing chiropractic than straight chiropractic. There is one seven figure chiropractor in this area who some days does not even come into the office. Assistants put the patients on the machines while he is off to a practice building seminar. Obviously, the adjustment is not an integral or even necessary part of his practice. Many young people graduating from straight schools drift into mixing because of the pressure of school loans and other debts hanging over their heads. Clearly, a mixing practice is more lucrative than a straight.
The second reason why some enter into the chiropractic profession is that they want the prestige of being a doctor and chiropractic is the fastest, easiest, and least expensive way to do it. It takes longer to become a Ph.D. or dentist and neither of them are considered real doctors. True, being a chiropractor does not have the prestige of being a medical doctor but we are getting there. This increase in prestige is largely due to the efforts of the mixing part of the profession. You see, straight chiropractic actually de-emphasizes the doctor image and the accompanying prestige. The emphasis in straight chiropractic is on the doctor within. The practitioner places himself/herself in a secondary role as merely an assistant to the innate intelligence of the patient’s body in the healing and health process. The patient education objective of the straight chiropractor is to undermine the confidence of the patient in doctors of all kinds with regard to the proper running of his or her body and instead develop the patient’s confidence in his or her own body’s ability to heal and maintain itself in a state of health. Furthermore, if the body is past the point of being able to do that we must admit that we as chiropractors are helpless to benefit the patient. This understanding and information contributes greatly to the well-being of the patient but it does very little for the ego and prestige of the chiropractor. For those who enter the profession for prestige, being a mixer has much greater attraction. Much of the effort of the mixing aspect of the profession is spent denigrating and attacking the abilities and procedures of medical practice, all the while desiring to utilize those procedures or practices side by side with the physicians they criticize. The idea is if medicine accepts us, that will be the biggest boost to our prestige possible. Medicine will accept us when we begin to practice medicine. That is the objective of mixing chiropractic to practice medicine.
The third reason why people choose the chiropractic profession is because they want to help people. It’s true. Altruism did not end with the 60’s generation. There are still a few people dedicated to serving mankind who are entering the chiropractic profession. Often, and this is the sad part, these people are lost to mixing chiropractic. You see, the straight chiropractor is faced with the problem of giving people something they do not know they need and don’t really think they want which will benefit them in ways they probably will not be able to see.
Most people do not know they are walking around with nerve interference because of a vertebral subluxation. It is not causing them a noticeable problem. What most people want or think they want is relief from their symptoms or to get rid of their disease. That is not what straight chiropractic is offering. It is what mixing chiropractic has to offer. The benefits of straight chiropractic care are not very demonstrable. How do you measure a healthier, better functioning body? How do you demonstrate that you will live longer with a good nerve supply than with vertebral subluxations? You cannot measure or empirically demonstrate these things even though they are the reality of health care. They must be proven by a step by step, systematic, logical presentation of the chiropractic philosophy. The real challenge of practicing straight chiropractic is making the effort day in and day out to convince people that you have something which is absolutely essential and vital to their health and that there is nowhere else they can get it and there are no alternatives or substitutes. Too many chiropractors have never learned this concept themselves and so their altruism has a misanthropic result. They cater to the base desires of people (treating their symptoms) while neglecting their vital needs. Or worse, those that have learned the concept and know it are frustrated by the lack of receptivity to it, are too lazy to keep on keeping on and so begin to give people what they want symptomatic relief. The people are happy, walking out of the chiropractor’s office with their bad back or stiff neck feeling better. The chiropractor rationalizes that by doing this he has “helped them.” But he conveniently forgets the fact that by practicing chiropractic on this level he has condemned that patient to a life less than what it could or should be and perhaps a premature death.
The straight chiropractic profession needs a renewal. We cannot place straight chiropractic on a competitive level with mixing chiropractic when it comes to making money or having prestige. We must stop trying to attract people to the profession on that basis. We can forget about getting people away from mixing for any reason except to convince them the greatest thing that they can do for their fellow man in the area of health is to correct vertebral subluxation, teach them the chiropractic philosophy, and nothing else. v7n6
