Looking Forward to Chiropractic's Future

I graduated from LACC in 1972. In 1971, together with Drs. John Hemauer and Ted Shrader, I went to Washington, D.C., and fought for the rights of chiropractic students to receive federal funding. Through that experience, I learned very quickly that standardization of chiropractic education was the key to success. We won!

I was the first doctor of chiropractic to become an official Olympic team doctor, serving so far for five Olympics, many track and field world championships, Pan American Games and too many other athletic events to mention. I have traveled around the world, treating athletes from more than 45 countries in both Eastern and Western Europe.

The reason I mention this is so you can understand that my perspective on the future of chiropractic comes from a warrior's point of view. I have lived in the heat of the battle against the American Medical Association and countless other medical associations for decades, fighting with countless others for chiropractic recognition and inclusion in the Olympics and other sports programs.

While we were fighting in the sports arena, Drs. Chester Wilk and Jerome McAndrews, true warriors, were fighting in the political arena. I soon realized the best way to reinforce their political activism was to concentrate on helping as many athletes as possible. The media would do the rest.

Today, chiropractors are accepted Olympic medical staff members. How did we win? It was not that we were so great or knowledgeable, but that the public heard the voices of the athletes demanding chiropractic inclusion and supporting their rights for freedom of choice. We, the chiropractors on the field, had to get an education in sports medicine, sports science, ergonomics, exercise physiology, biomechanics, nutrition and other areas pertaining to enhancing human performance. Our sword became education; our war helmet and shield the knowledge and results we achieved. The more we learned and the better our athletes performed, the more we gained the respect and acceptance from other professions.

As time passed and our profession learned and matured with it, I recognized that doctors like Dr. Tom Hyde and Dr. Jan Corwin were trying to improve the chiropractic role in sports. Then there were exceptional futuristic thinkers like Dr. Monte Greenawalt, who founded Foot Levelers, and now his son Kent Greenawalt, who improved our profession through efforts to provide higher education and developing products that help people help themselves. Chiropractic educators like Dr. Don Petersen Sr. started Dynamic Chiropractic magazine and encouraged me to invent products and teach sports-science programs so more chiropractors could learn and participate. And let's not forget about Dr. Clarence Gonstead, biomechanical science; Dr. Leonard Faye, motion palpation; Dr. Kim Christensen, rehabilitation; Dr. James M. Cox, flexion/distraction; and Dr. Terry Yochum, radiology, to name just a few who worked through the years to help raise the educational standards of our profession. Another exceptional leader, Dr. Scott Haldeman, has played a major role in reinforcing our profession through his research and striving for educational excellence. These are all unselfish, exceptional doctors who have helped lead the way for future generations of chiropractors to come. If we are to win, we need more educators and leaders like these.

We need to be concerned about the political aggression of the physical-therapy profession, which by utilizing very strong lobbyists, has been successful in winning decisive legislative battles within the insurance industry, especially with Medicare. It has gained them dominance and reimbursement at our expense. Remember, education is our sword. There is a way to win this battle. LACC, my alma mater, is now the Southern California University of Health Sciences and has added acupuncture to its curriculum under the supervision of the brilliant leader, educator and futuristic thinker Dr. Reed Phillips. I encourage them and other chiropractic colleges to include within their curriculum a physical-therapy program with a master's and doctorate degree. Many chiropractors are becoming licensed acupuncturists; why not also become licensed physical therapists? You deserve to be reimbursed for physical therapy, so get a degree and license and bill accordingly. We should be standing on top of the mountain looking to the horizon to accomplish a winning strategy, not waiting around while others legislate us into bankruptcy.

Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine, herbology, homeopathy - all these sciences should be added or at least offered as part of our war chest as alternative health care specialists. The more degrees and licensures you have, the stronger our profession will become. Do we want to lead or follow? I cannot follow. But I can see and feel what we can be, what we can accomplish. I know our potential is limitless. If we as a profession are willing to study, learn and teach our patients to help themselves, then we will become the doctors of the future, fulfilling Thomas Edison's prediction: "The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease."

Remember, it is public opinion that can help us win the real battle. The battle is against ignorance of what chiropractic is all about. We can never educate the public too often or too much. We must never become complacent with our accomplishments.

Here is another example of how we can educate the public. For many years, I have been donating my time silently to America's Schools Program. They have developed a national recycling program that will generate millions of dollars for grades K-12. Look at our Web site: www.americasschools.org. Here is an opportunity for every chiropractic office to become a drop-off location for ink-jet cartridges, cell phones, etc. It is also an opportunity for your office to be advertised, at no cost to you. This program has the potential to create more good publicity for the chiropractic profession than all the publicity ever-generated in the history of chiropractic, at no cost to us. As chairman of the America's Schools Sports Science and Medical Advisory Board, I have arranged for a similar program to benefit every chiropractic college and student body wishing to participate.

We also are developing a speaker's bureau program as part of our America's Schools Program, which will enable all doctors, no matter what their specialty is, to help educate our children on self-help health techniques. If you are interested, contact us at the e-mail address listed below.

I believe that we will achieve Thomas Edison's prediction, but only if our chiropractic leaders realize it is time to unify us into one voice. Look at history. Those who won wars did so by unifying the parts into a greater whole. We must stop our senseless political rivalry and inner bickering. We must band together as a united profession; a force so strong, so educated that no one can defeat us. Our strength is in our conviction: We know there is a better health care system; one in which chiropractic as a comprehensive health care profession is willing to grow with science and contribute to the well-being of future generations to come. We are guardians of self-help and students of the suffering of mankind. Our future is in every chiropractor's heart, hands and minds. Our future is you! Now pick up your sword and use it well.