Gallup Poll: Americans Have Low Opinion of Chiropractors' Honesty and Ethics
Medical Doctors, Five Other Health Occupations Rate Higher
Dynamic Chiropractic Staff
Results of Gallup's latest poll on honesty and ethics by profession are in, and for the eighth consecutive year, nurses top the list by a definitive margin. However, while 84% consider nurses' ethics "very high" or "high," only 36% feel the same way about chiropractors.
The poll, conducted Dec. 8-10, 2006, rated 23 occupations, including seven health care professions, with regard to their honesty and ethics. Poll respondents could choose from one of four options when assessing each profession's honesty/ethics: "very high," "high," "average" and "very low/low."
The majority of the health professions surveyed ranked high on the list: Druggists or pharmacists came in second, with 73% of respondents rating them "very high" or "high," followed by veterinarians (71%), medical doctors (69%), and dentists (62%). Among non-health-related occupations, engineers received the best ethics rating (61%), followed by college teachers (58%), clergy (58%) and policemen (54%).
If there's any remotely encouraging news - if you can call it that - about the latest Gallup poll, it's that the majority of those polled were fairly neutral when considering chiropractic ethics/honesty. Nearly 50 percent voted an "average" response, while only 10 percent voted "very low" or "low." Chiropractors did rank well ahead of 11 occupations rated in the poll; although 11 have had their professional eithics questioned in the past:
journalists (26% received a "very high" or "high" ethics rating);
state governors (22%);
business executives (18%);
lawyers (18%);
stockbrokers (17%);
senators (15%);
congressmen (14%);
insurance salesmen (13%);
HMO managers (12%);
advertising practitioners (11%);
car salesmen (7%).
Poll results are based on telephone interviews with 1,009 U.S. adults, with a maximum margin of sampling error of ± 3 percentage points.
Refund requests are an unavoidable part of running a chiropractic practice. Whether a patient is unhappy with their care, believes an adjustment caused harm, or simply changes their mind, these situations must be handled carefully to avoid escalation. While chiropractors are not legally obligated to issue refunds in most cases, there are times when doing so is the best business decision to protect the practice.
Back pain? Blame the psoas. Seems as if everybody wants to dive headfirst into their psoas at the first sign of trouble with the lumbopelvic-hip region. Perhaps no other muscle is blamed more for causing problems than the psoas. Yes, it is an important stabilizer of the lumbar spine, but it shouldn't be the only one on which you focus. There is another big player on the scene: the iliacus.
Interested in providing a new service? Need to know whether you can pursue dry needling, venipuncture or even animal chiropractic? Or perhaps you’re advising a prospective chiropractic student who doesn't know whether a bachelor’s degree is required for licensure in your state. The answers to these questions and more are available on Chiropractic Future’s Government Affairs Hub.
