If you've even been on a stage in front of a large crowd, there are two things you notice immediately: the lights are too bright and too hot. But for people to see you from all parts of the arena, there must be strong lighting aimed at the stage from many directions.
This intense light and heat is a metaphor for the recent events involving the vaulted presence of chiropractic upon the national stage. In less than 30 days, chiropractic has had an unprecedented amount of exposure:
Fortunately, we are quickly learning how the media game is played. After the disastrous headlines generated by the NEJM papers, the chiropractors involved in the JAMA study (Geoffrey Bove,DC,PhD, and Niels Nilsson,DC,MD,PhD) took extra precaution to eliminate any statements that could be misunderstood by the media or misused by JAMA.
But correcting our mistakes is only the first step. What really needs to happen is a constant process of learning and creating. We must become proactive in our interactions with the media. The chiropractic profession must take control by issuing our own press releases when presenting our research to the world. It should be part of the budget for every research grant provided by every chiropractic organization. Public relations should also be part of the budget of every chiropractic research publication. It's obviously the case with NEJM and JAMA; they were the ones holding press conferences the day before each of the chiropractic papers were published.
We have something to say and the public wants to hear it.
We have fought long and hard to be recognized and acknowledged by the world as an efficacious health care profession. Now that we have their attention, it's time to impress the world with the value and benefits of chiropractic.
The spotlight will be on chiropractic as long as we have something to say. If we stand around nervously twiddling our fingers, the spotlight will move to something more interesting.
It's time to show 'em what we've got.
When I graduated from chiropractic college in 1981 and started practice, I heard it all, and very little was positive. “You are a quack; you do not know what a subluxation is; you couldn’t get into a real health care program, so you chose the one that is slightly above a mail-order degree; you have no proof that chiropractic works; Are you really licensed?”, and so much more.
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A central challenge in creating our identity is that chiropractic is a method of care, not a technique or procedure. This is an important concept for us to promote. Our patients are treated with lifestyle modification, exercise, nutritional supplements, diet and a whole-body approach to accelerate the natural healing process. We are not simply CMT providers.
The results of a global survey released late last year (2023) unveiled some startling findings among medical and nursing students. The “Clinician of the Future: 2023 Education Edition” surveyed 2,212 students, of which 446 were in the United States, from 91 countries.
