2001: A Year for Building Bridges

Recent reports^1,2 demonstrate just how far removed the leaders of a profession can be from their members. According to these two reports, the American Medical Association (AMA) has lost four percent of their members in the past year, causing a $4.1 million loss in dues revenues.

At the same meeting in which this dramatic loss in membership was announced, the Texas Medical Association requested the creation of an "AMA council on membership" to improve the relationship between the association and its members. Their request went unheeded and resulted in no action by the AMA, just as it did when similar requests were made in 1997, 1993, 1992 and numerous times in the 1980s.

One delegate from the Texas Medical Association summed up the plight between the AMA and its members in just four sentences: "Our staff at Texas Medical is out in the field with our members. The staff thinks that our physicians are wonderful, and as a result, our physicians think our staff is wonderful. The physicians of America don't know the AMA, and they don't know AMA staff. The staff needs to get out of Chicago and into the field."

The "bridge" between the AMA and its members is obviously in desperate need of repair. Their members continue to "vote with their feet," i.e., they walk away.

Proudly, the chiropractic profession is seeing a reversal in the trend of burning bridges (or in some cases, letting them rot). The conference sponsored by the Congress of Chiropractic State Associations (please see "National Chiropractic Leadership Conference" on the front page of this issue) is part of a valiant effort to rebuild bridges that have been burned and badly marred by angry, thoughtless actions in the past.
As an honored participant of that meeting, I have to tell you that it brought real hope to my heart that we might be able to put aside the old arguments in favor of a new spirit of cooperation. This is not just wishful thinking. There was, and continues to be, a new attitude that the time for cooperation on all levels has arrived.

This new attitude was further demonstrated in action when leaders from the International Chiropractors Association (ICA) and the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) met to discuss the potential common ground that they could develop on their respective legislative agendas. (Please see the report on that meeting in the next issue.) The fact that the two groups met is significant. It could result in both organizations supporting some of the same legislation in the near future.

This news may cause some to jump to conclusions. Will the ACA and ICA be merging?

I would answer that question with another: Which comes first, merger or cooperation?
Merger suggests unity, but it also requires certain sacrifices, not the least of which are a certain loss of control and identity. Imagine that your practice "merged" into a national chiropractic franchise. No longer would your office have your name on the door, or your sign out front. As a national franchise, your practice would lose its uniqueness. Franchisees would have the same letterhead, forms, procedures, interior design, and so on. You may even be told how to adjust and how much to charge. You are now part of something bigger. You may have more security or access to more patients, or any number of other advantages, but you have sacrificed your identity and control to accomplish this.

Perhaps the more realistic question for right now is: On what issues and at what level can ACA and ICA work together in 2001? This takes the pressure off of "merger" and puts the focus on creating an environment of cooperation between the two organizations and the profession-at- large. This allows the two groups to exchange ideas and listen to each other (potentially a new event), try working together, and see what they can accomplish as comrades. If this is successful, some formal structure, reflective of the level of cooperation, will more than likely emerge.

During my first semester of studying architecture, I was taught "form follows function." Simply put, what something does dictates what it looks like. There is no sense trying to build a common organization when neither party works together. But let them spend time working together fighting chiropractic's battles side-by-side; let them learn from each other and replace the bitterness of past insults with new relationships and shared experiences; let each of our chiropractic leaders see that the challenges facing our profession are far greater than the differences that have separated us in the past.

Only then will a cooperative structure follow as a natural progression of relationships that serve as the foundation for that structure.

References

1. Red ink continues to flow at AMA. Reuters Medical News, December 5, 2000.

    

2. AMA membership declined by 4%; Revenue loss put at $4 Million. Reuters Medical News, December 5, 2000.

   DMP Jr.