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Here's what our members are saying about us...
"In late February, the local CBS affiliate ran a 3 minute "public interest" (?) story on 2 women that feel they were injured by a chiropractic adjustment. While my patients trust me and what I do to be safe, like most chiropractic patients, they needed help talking to friends and family members about the safety and effectiveness of their choice to continue getting adjusted.
Less than 2 weeks after the TV story, the In Touch Newsletter arrived at my door with its lead article being a review of the Spine article showing no statistical connection between chiropractic adjustments and stroke. I loved it. It is displayed prominently in my office."
Dr. Tim Knight
Arlington, MA
"Voice For Health is so well received - patients ask for them. It is a wonderful publication, entertaining and informative in the right kind of language."
Dr. Gerald Arndt
Coshocton, OH
"Thanks for your commitment to the cause and your great Voice For Health publication over the years."
Dr. Robson Timbs
Malvern, South Australia
"Continuous patient education is a MUST. The problem is, how do you do this and keep it fresh, interesting, and informative all at the same time? That’s where Dr. Kim Stetzel’s WEEKLY HANDOUTS Program comes in! She’s done the work. She’s created interesting and informative, full color handouts. All you have to do is put them in your patient’s hands and let the handouts speak for themselves! I highly recommend this program for anyone who is interested in growing and maintaining a Lifetime Family Wellness practice."
Dr. George Auger
Greenville, SC
"What a great program. With our busy schedule, we didn’t always get time to put out regular patient education. Now, we just print out quality, full color, professional looking handouts on our color printer each week. WOW! thanks for taking the work out of consistent patient education."
Drs. Kevorkian & Giuliano
Westwood, MA
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The International Federation of Chiropractors and Organizations' Blog
| Thursday, May 05, 2011 |
| Is That the Pot Calling the Kettle Black…? |
| By Joseph B. Strauss, DC, FCSC |
| Thursday, May 05, 2011 03:00 |
I was amazed at how many chiropractors rose up in righteous indignation over the recent attempt by New Mexico chiropractors to have drug prescribing written into the New Mexico state law. Perhaps I am a pessimist, but I really did not think that many chiropractors really cared whether other chiropractors prescribed drugs or not. Actually, I consider myself a realist and realistically the legislature should only be listening to the opinions of New Mexico chiropractors on this issue. It is likely, that the legislature made their decision based on their own thoughts rather than any emails that were sent by the profession.
What amazes me is that the most often verbalized objection was that "chiropractic has historically been a drugless profession." Is that the best reason we can come up with for not wanting to prescribe drugs? Heavens, chiropractic was historically a cure for deafness. Do we really want to make our stand on that bit of historical fact? Or how about we once purported to be a cure for all diseases.
Who are we going to persuade by the argument that we are historically drugless? Even if we were able to persuade the New Mexico legislature, judging from some of the idiotic drivel that passes for legislation in this country, that is not such a great accomplishment. We were fortunate this time. The next time we may come up against people who say, "Well, what's the difference between you chiropractors and medical doctors? Why don't we just do away with your drugless type, since the M.D.s can do that and then make all the chiropractors who want to prescribe go back to school and learn medicine?"
That idea is not too far-fetched. Some years back, a group of chiropractors lobbied the federal government to have a separate and distinct accrediting agency. However, the majority of the profession said, "No, we can function under an accrediting agency which holds to medical standards." That accrediting agency is the same one that is embracing the "prescriptive drugs" idea today. The point is that we really need a better argument than "historically, we have been drugless" if we expect to win the next battle.
One of these days the "medical wannabes" will trot out the argument that the medical profession has been using since 1895, that is, if your objective is to treat disease, you are practicing medicine. If the medical profession had used that argument, or at least intelligently expressed it, they would have buried our profession decades ago. When it comes right down to it, if you are treating a disease, and that is your objective, it matters little what tools or modalities you use to accomplish that objective. You still must come up with a differential diagnosis. You still must have an intelligent prognosis. You still must be sure that your treatment is not only safe, but effective and will not delay the care of the drug-prescribing M.D. down the street. If you can do that, then whether you prescribe drugs, use manipulation, acupuncture, physical therapy, nutritional therapy, massage, or a dozen other procedures that are drugless, is of little consequence. I would argue that the drug prescribing wannabe is rather confused or perplexed by the backlash to his suggestion to the N.M. legislature. He is probably scratching his head and saying "if we are all in the business of treating or curing disease, why should we limit ourselves to the 25-30 tools that most chiropractors are using when medical science has demonstrated that one more is, in many cases, more effective?
It really comes down to whether we want to step up as a disease-treating profession, step to the level of the M.D., or whether we want to be second class, limiting our treatments to "drugless measures." The idea of "tiering" our profession is a joke. There cannot be tiers. Either we are medicine or we are practicing something else. If we are going to practice medicine, then let's do it right -- become M.D.s, not some silly title like "chiropractic physician." If we are going to practice something else, then it is not the treatment, cure or prevention of disease or its causes by drugless methods. There is only one group of people that is practicing something other than medicine. Claiming that your approach is drugless is only admitting that you have the same objective as the M.D. but that you want to limit yourself in achieving your objective.
Either we take the position that we do not address disease, its symptoms, cause or prevention or we become physicians, real physicians, not with some oxymoronic term like "chiropractic" tacked on to "physician." Those that want to prescribe drugs understand that. They want to be full physicians but are willing to get a foot in the door as "chiropractic physicians." Non-therapeutic, objective, straight chiropractors understand that and want to avoid any term that even remotely resembles allopathy. Why can't the rest of the profession grasp it?
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