Jul
26
Chiropractic is DEAD
Since the time that I learned about and subsequently fell in love with Chiropractic I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that I fell in love with a sinking ship. From the outside looking in, the Chiropractic profession is a mess. The public as a whole trusts chiros about as much as they trust snake oil salesmen and though we have fought so valiantly to be “real doctors” in the eyes of the general public, we have managed to make very little progress in the last 100+ years. And in spite of the positive “it’s not as bad as it used to be” outlook that people often insist on comforting me with when they find out I have the letters DC behind my name, I don’t have a warm fuzzy feeling about the security of the profession in which I have chosen to dedicate my life.
Now I’m not by any means bad mouthing Chiropractic. I love Chiropractic. With that said…for the most part, I hate (hate may be a bit strong) Chiropractors. I know that sounds a bit harsh, but one of my pet peeves is when people speak very boldly about things they are ignorant of. Since chiropractors usually have very strong opinions about Chiropractic but most of them have never taken the time to actually find out what Chiropractic is about, I chose not to hang out with them. Sadly, even the ones that think they know…usually don’t. That’s even more annoying.
How all chiros can give BJ Palmer the credit for “Developing” the profession but 99% of chiros ignore BJs work is something that will puzzle me until the day I die. Truthfully, my entire Chiropractic journey took a massive turn because of a single phrase uttered by my good friend Dr. Adam Tanase while we were still in Chiropractic college. He said, “BJ did it. We should at least look into it.” Now there’s a novel idea. Let’s find out what the “Developer” of the profession did and do that! If you are a chiro and you are reading this and are unsure about what I mean then maybe you should pick up a Green Book and learn about how BJ applied this amazing philosophy that you love so much. And if you are a chiro and you don’t know what a Green Book is…well…shame on you.
Now I didn’t say all that just to gripe and moan. Like I said before. I love Chiropractic. But I truly believe that Chiropractic is DEAD. After years of struggling, it has died from self-inflicted wounds. We as chiros have killed our own profession and we have done it in the most ironic way, from the inside out. The diversity of the profession has spread it too thin to survive. The Chiropractic war cry for years has been “Why can’t we all just get along?” but I have recently realized something. We can’t. We won’t. And we never will.
It is said that united we stand and divided we fall, but in Chiropractic’s case, I believe that divided is the only path to survival. We have tried for too long to live under the same roof together when we are clearly divided. The Bible says in the Gospel of Matthew “a house divided amongst itself will fall.” This is why over the last few years, Chiropractors who in the past have referred to themselves as “Specific Chiropractors” have dropped the term Chiropractic and started referring to themselves as “Upper Cervical Doctors.” We are trying to get our own house because we are sick of all the problems and fighting. When people ask me why we started changing the name, I usually just tell them that enough Chiropractors have peed in our pool that we decided to get our own pool. I think it creates a nice visual, don’t you?
Now Upper Cervical Doctors have been getting a lot of heat about the recent change, even amongst our own. Of course this isn’t terribly unexpected because Chiropractic has a long illustrious history of eating their own. But the bottom line is, we are right. Division is the only path to survival. And not just for Upper Cervical Docs, for EVERY chiropractor.
Think about it. What would the medical profession look like if every Medical Doctor was just a Medical Doctor? What if there were no Podiatrists, Pediatricians, EENTs, Urologists, Oncologists or Neurologists? What if they were not allowed by state law to call themselves anything different in spite of additional training and specific specialty? What if a Podiatrist had to go around explaining to people that they were a Medical Doctor “who did something different” or that they focused on a very specific type of medicine that has no name. Then they can spend half of their day explaining to people why they only work with feet and don’t work with the digestive track even though their last Medical Doctor did. After all…aren’t all Medical Doctors the same?
The bottom line is this. We all do very different things. We aren’t the same. We don’t have the same training. We don’t all focus on the same type of care. We aren’t ever going to agree on what Chiropractic is or should be. AND we sure as heck do NOT get the same results. So let’s stop pretending that we are one big happy family and stop insulting the intelligence of ourselves and the general public. We are a house divided so we should start acting like one. Let Chiropractic Rest In Peace and let’s move on to bigger and better things. We will all be better off.
