We Get Letters

"Being a Snitch Is Good, Not Bad"

Dear Editor:

It was very interesting to hear Dr. Linda Elyad's report on her friend who was exploited by many established DCs as she tried to get started.

My heart cries for her and for my profession. The people in the ivory towers keep talking about a few doctors doing all these bad things. I disagree. It is not just a few doctors in my little city that do things like this, and I do not think that my city is different from others across the nation. I talk to other doctors in whom I have a great deal of trust and confidence and they tell me they have lots of doctors doing the same thing.

I have one thing to say to or about Dr. Elyad. Why has she not documented the illegal things that were going on? She could have had names, dates, amounts of money, and whatever to turn over to the state board. Unless each doctor starts to police the profession whenever something wrong is found, we will never become a great profession. We will gradually kill ourselves. It may not be too late for her to start the wheels turning on some of these people if she turns them in now.

I learned in combat that being a snitch is good, not bad. We have to depend on each other, and if you can not trust your own people, it may cost you your life. Chiropractic is engaged in combat right now, and these "other doctors" are endangering our lives. Bullets and bankruptcy can both kill.

I have been pushing for some type of leadership on the national level for several years. Your series on "In Pursuit of Chiropractic Ethics" is a start. Keep up the good work.

John M. Du Bois, D.C., DACBN
Escondido, California

Dear Editor:

This is my first letter to Dynamic Chiropractic and it was generated after I read what I felt was a very important and much needed column titled "Doctor Vulnerabilities," by Linda S. Elyad of San Rafael, California.

After reading Dr. Elyad's article, one is immediately thrust into asking why it is that recent graduate doctors have such poor prospects and such poor pay scale relative to other doctors and professionals. I feel I can shed some light on the reasons.

Number one is that we have allowed ourselves to become the "used car salesmen of the health care profession" (phrase is mine). The malls show cartoon-like advertisements, free exams, and on and one, and are not the type of tactics one expects from a health care professional. For example, would you be quick to visit an allopathic physician who advertised by saying, "Do you have fever, headaches, tumors, diabetes? -- allopathy can treat many of these things." Or how about a surgeon who had his scalpel and hemostats on a table and was doing exams in a local mall?

For many people, perception is reality. If we present ourselves with garish, non-classy type advertisements, and if we seem we are begging for patients, then what kind of respect would you expect us to receive?

Another problem, indeed something I feel is a major problem, is a 12-letter word starting with "C" and ending with "R", and the word is chiropractor. Now, before people start screaming, "What is wrong with that?", let's think about the word. Do allopaths call themselves allopractors, or do attorneys call themselves legapractors? Osteopathic physicians do not call themselves osteopractors. The term does not conjure up the notion of a white-coated physician; it sounds more like a name of a trade like a plumber. We are licensed doctors and yet, why are so many practitioners timid about using the term? When we have a patient who says they are late to our office or missed an appointment because they had to visit "the doctor," do chiropractic doctors act quickly to remind them that they are at a doctor's office now? I propose what we should have a CD after our names instead of DC.

John Raymond Baker, D.C.
Tyler, Texas

Dear Editor:

Perhaps Dr. Smith's article was written tongue in cheek and I misread the humorous intent. Be that as it may, I was angered and alarmed by the last paragraph of the article.

I was angered because I read he implied that only women ("...the next adolescent girl you see who even looks like she is sexually active") are responsible for birth and/or the population problems. In my opinion, this acorn falls not too far from the tree of rapists who maintain, "She made me do it" or "She was dressed for it."

To me, this was an alarming statement that was at the least untruthful because we all know reproduction takes both sexes "to tango," and did a disservice and dishonoring to all men by continuing to remove responsibility of the sexual act from men.

I agree with Dr. Smith that overpopulation presents a problem, but I feel that both men and women, adolescent girls and adolescent boys must bear responsibility for all of their own behavior, including the "tango."

Robert Wakamatsu, D.C.
Van Nuys, California

Dear Editor:

Your recent article, "It Works," in the October 23, 1992 issue of Dynamic Chiropractic states the obvious, that is, experience, especially supervised experience, produces competence. However, you, as a psychologist, should know better than most that without belief in what you do, in its value to others, competence is of little value and to practice without belief is hypocritical.

The best salesmen are either good con men or have a deep belief in their product. In chiropractic, the con men don't believe and they use their competence to get rich, but they will never be successful or happy. Without both belief and competence, their lives are a fraud.

We, as a profession, can trace much of our inner turmoil to the sudden and massive influx of non-believers (administrators, teachers, and students) whose motives are not the advocacy of chiropractic principles but to "make a living" while still secretly believing that our ideas are inferior. These attitudes have contributed to an ambivalence and a loss of confidence in many new chiropractors.

You, yourself, display a certain lack of belief in your field of training, although your "clinical experience" appears superb, by abandoning it for another field which is completely alien to it.

You grudgingly admit that our schools have been operating under a handicap. Given the circumstances (medical and political oppression) and the resources available, they have done an outstanding job. Our profession has survived and flourished because of them. Would your "clinical experience" have been different, do you suppose, if the schools and hospitals in which you trained had not had federal/state/foundation/pharmaceutical and medical grants and subsidies?

Instead of knocking our schools and, by implication, our graduates, give them credit for having done an outstanding job against impossible odds.

Our schools are getting better all the time.

John J. Carone, D.C.
South Plainfield, New Jersey

Dear Editor:

In response to Dr. Pedigo's letter "Yellow Journalism," in the November 6, 1992 issue of Dynamic Chiropractic, I would make this brief comment. Approximately 50 percent of our CCE chiropractic colleges teach the therapeutic approach to disease and simply include spinal manipulative therapy as one of the many therapies with which to treat the patient. These colleges are not subluxation-based and they are the traditional ACA colleges.

I am not going to play games with Dr. Pedigo and start naming colleges; any informed chiropractor knows what I mean. I believe my statements were accurate and by reading mine and Dr. Winterstein's articles in the same issue of Dynamic Chiropractic, one can clearly see that National College, often considered the "Flag Ship" of ACA colleges, does not teach the traditional concepts of vertebral misalignment/subluxation. Dr. Winterstein does not deny my allegations but clearly states his position on this matter.

Dr. Pedigo's vehemence makes me wonder, is he really this uninformed or is he now ashamed of his choice, his choice to champion ACA? Come, come, Dr. Pedigo -- not only is the ACA loosing its subluxation base, but it now condones proprietary drugs wherever states consider them common domain. It has also qualified surgery, stating chiropractic care does not include "incisive surgery." Does that mean it does include minor surgery? A question that ACA counselor, Attorney McAndrews, prefers not to answer. Read the preface of ACA's Master Plan and you will see that what I say is true.

"Enuf said."

Fred H. Barge, D.C., Ph.C.
LaCrosse, Wisconsin