The Sweet Sixteen and The Final Four: When Will Chiropractic Reach the Championship Game?

By the time this article is published, the NCAA will have crowned college basketball champions (men's and women's teams) for the 2005-2006 season. I cannot even venture to guess who the teams will be this year, because I am not that much of a college basketball fan, even though I enjoy March Madness to its fullest extreme.

So, if you want a recap of the college season, this article is not for you. What else do I ever write about other than the chiropractic profession? My wife and children know me too well; if it does not have anything to do with chiropractic, I will find a way to either speak or write about it! Someone recently wrote to me and inquired as to where I get the ideas for my articles. My response, as simple as it might be, is that my ideas come from everyday life experiences. I see or read an article about success or challenges, and I equate it to the chiropractic profession. Let me demonstrate by expounding on the headline above that got your interest in the first place.

Making the Sweet Sixteen, which leads to the Final Four and the eventual championship game in collegiate basketball, is the result of hard work and special skills. Teams work all season long developing shooting skills and training to go the distance, so they can play for it all in that final 40-minute game and hoist a trophy signifying their team's national accomplishment.

The chiropractic profession is so similar. This profession has been in training for more than 110 years, developing techniques and skill sets to one day arrive at the championship game. To date, we have not achieved the national recognition we so rightfully deserve, but we keep working at it each day, to one day go head-to-head with the health care competition and demonstrate to the entire world that chiropractic is a tremendous health care resource. Our time will come - but when? I know that's the question you keep asking.

What are the keys for a team to achieve a championship? Answer: working on the basics. Basketball teams work at their shooting and defense over and over until they establish a rhythm that cannot be broken. Just like a championship team must hone their skills, so must the chiropractic profession.

In my opinion, our profession'never works on the basics; we are too quick to ignore what made this profession great and we have allowed too many mixed messages to take the profession off course. Whether those messages were philosophical, educational or personal, they have caused the profession to lose focus. We need to re-establish the basic skill sets of this profession before some other health care profession comes along and provides your current and future patients with the skills and services you possess! It is no secret that doctors of physical therapy, medical physicians and osteopaths who want to protect their right to manipulate are on the horizon, as are a host of other challenges to the original niche of chiropractic.

If the chiropractic profession keeps to the basics by educating the public on what it does for its millions of patients, the profession will achieve a place in the "championship game." If we allow the profession to get sidetracked into being something we are "not perceived as" by those health care consumers who use our services, despite our superb education and training, the profession will never reach that final game.

"Focus on what got you to the dance." That's a common urging by coaches to their players as March Madness gets underway each year. I offer that same sound advice to the chiropractic profession nationally: Focus on what got you where you are today by being the best health care provider to deliver what the public needs when visiting your office.

History is replete with stories of corporations, companies and individuals that had achieved a "niche" and were viewed as the experts, only to try to "extend their brand" beyond what the consumer would accept. Volkswagen is a good example. They made good, inexpensive cars. They owned the Beatle and the Rabbit. Even their slogan, "From Bugs to Bunnies," was a great campaign; then they developed a luxury automobile and it went bust. Who wants an expensive VW? So it is with the chiropractic profession: The profession was built in the minds of the public on our ability to manage musculoskeletal conditions and relive pain. That is what got patients into your door initially.

Undoubtedly there are many stories of miracle recoveries that are absolutely true, but they took place in the offices of individual chiropractors around the world. What initially motivated a patient to come into the chiropractor's office was, in all probability, pain - back pain, neck pain or some musculoskeletal distress. Only after receiving chiropractic care did the patient discover the benefits of chiropractic. And even after the patient received those benefits, their own family and friends would not believe chiropractic had anything to do with it.

My advice to the profession is simply this: Focus on what got you to the dance, and then build on it, nurture it, and expand it all in good time. When critical mass is reached, a tipping point will occur and the profession will be transformed by evolution.