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January 2007, Vol. 17, No. 1
Table of Contents
• Are You Busy Selling Chiropractic or Correcting Subluxations
• BJ's House Needs Repairs • Another Look At Cell Phones
• Chiropractic R.I.P. • Colloca and CBP Nonprofit Study Wins Best Paper Award • Help Us Locate Allen Botnick • Letters to the Editor
• Michigan Chiropractic Society Sees Evidence of Growing Need For Chiropractic • Meeting With Success • A New Look At Mirror Image Exercise • Mourning The Loss Of Tony Keller • Past Present and Future In Chiropractic • Posture Study By UQTR Researchers and CBP® Published by JCO • PostureRay™, PosturePrint™ Helping Doctors Help Patients
• The Importance of A Clinically Relevant Presentation of Findings
• It's Pauls Opinion • Research Corner • Scoliosis: SpineCor Brace
• Triano and CCGPP's Will Give You Six Visits
• Clinical Indications for Videoflouroscopy
• Western States Chiropractic College Receives NIH Grant •
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Are You Busy Selling Chiropractic, or Correcting Subluxations?
by R. J. Hammett, D.C.
Dr. Hammett is a chiropractor in private practice in Kenosha, Wisconsin. After graduating from Life College in 1979, he completed several post-graduate programs in Physical Impairments, Diagnostic Imaging and Rehabilitation. He completed his Juris Doctor in 1995. He has written articles for several Journals and has lectured to numerous Chiropractic groups on the topics of Practice Management and Risk Prevention.
The focus of private practice is finding and correcting subluxations. Your style of chiropractic will determine the types of patients you attract. Your first job is to determine what your style is, for you cannot be everything to everyone. The styles are simple: pain relief, pain relief and function restoration, holistic care, spinal biomechanical changes, subluxations correction. Each style of practice brings with it different challenges and different proactive problems.
So, first know thyself. Next, know what your end result is with each patient. Basically, do you and your patient know when you’re done with care? Do you both have an understanding of what each phase of care you are recommending consists of? How long it lasts? How many visits? What ‘tests’ indicate improvement?
Does chiropractic have to be sold? Yes and no. For more years than I can remember, we have sold to the public that chiropractic is great for pain — “relief from neck, back or headache pain.” Chiropractors have spent millions teaching the public about the chiropractic approach to pain relief without drugs. Guess what? They understand that’s what we do. Unfortunately, as chiropractic research is proving more every day, chiropractic is much more than pain relief, much more than function restoration. But, it’s already too late. We’ve taught everyone we’re about pain, and we’ve done a great job of it.
The chiropractic of the future will be decided by the practitioners of today. Those of you in the field — day in and day out — educate as well as help the public. Recent college studies find that the majority of the new graduates had never received any chiropractic care before attending chiropractic colleges. They have very little understanding or belief in the long-term effects of VSC. They are the future. They will determine chiropractic, if you let them. Or, you can take a stand and vote your conscience on what chiropractic should be and is.
Now, and in recent years, guidelines have been proposed and accepted, not for the profession, not for the public, but for third party interests. In fact, the majority of legislative laws governing chiropractic have been about third party interests and not about the promotion of chiropractic. The end result has always been the same — third parties control the destiny of chiropractic instead of chiropractors and their patients. Do you want more patients than you can handle? Do you want the public demanding chiropractic as the primary portal of entry into health care? Then the route is easy to follow:
1. A recognized definition of chiropractic accepted by all chiropractors, not third party interests, and not by a few chiropractors with self interests.
2. A unified front, legally supported for freedom of health care. Meaning, patients chose their doctors, not third parties
3. A definition of the focus of chiropractic care and all of its components. Outside of the medical model of care that the majority of the profession has adapted due to third party interests.
4. A united front to educate the public on the true causes and corrections of vertebral subluxations and dis-ease it causes.
5. A public advisory panel run by the public to address public needs of health care through chiropractic.
6. A unified national chiropractic research committee, not controlled by investors, government or third parties, to further demonstrate the value of correcting VSC.
So, there you have the start. You want to sell ‘chiropractic’ or correct as many VSC’s as you can handle? Very simply, it’s time to get our heads out of sand and start to lead health care, not follow it.
Till next time........
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