Dear Editor:
In the Dec. 1, 2015 issue, we have Donald Petersen reporting on "the adapting chiropractic practice," which includes multidisciplinary practice as an option; a ChiroPoll indicating 59 percent of DCs are seeing at least 21 patients per day and 27 percent are seeing more than 40. (Can we really provide quality care at that rate?) Then there's Dr. Lehman's insightful article on diagnosis being our ethical and legal duty, and how at least in Colorado, that duty seems to be going by the wayside. And finally, we see Dr. Rowland's compelling letter to the editor about the educational standards of our profession not keeping pace with others in the health care community.
And so, we have apparently reached a decision point in our profession. Are we going to leap headlong into the 21st century, fine tuning our educational standards, fulfilling our obligation to our patients to correctly diagnose them and expanding our scope to utilize 21st century modalities and become properly educated members of interdisciplinary health care teams? Or are we going to follow Colorado, as Dr. Lehman discussed, into the abyss of locating and analyzing subluxations ... period, end of discussion?
We must take a good, long look at the realities of providing health care in our current environment, properly train our new docs in broad-scope practice and co-management of patients, or relegate ourselves to the history books as an interesting profession whose time has come and gone.
Cathlynn Groh, DC, APC
Santa Fe, N.M.
Thinking Outside The Box
Dear Editor:
It's hard to know which college Dr. Rowland graduated from or how long he has been in practice ("We Are Not a Healthy Profession"; published in We Get Letters & Email, Dec. 1, 2015 issue), but his sentiments regarding the quality of his education and fellow students makes me think he might have only recently arrived in the practicing chiropractic world.
Most recently graduated docs feel their school didn't prepare them adequately to address the myriad of health issues they face every day in practice, and let's face it — they're right. Your school could not teach you what it didn't know. Health care is still in its infancy and there remains more that is not known than is known. If one isn't comfortable working within a field with huge knowledge gaps, maybe a job change is in order.
With regard to Dr. Rowland's inference that our MD counterparts are better suited to this world than we lowly DCs, I strongly disagree. When it comes to admitting future MDs into school, the assumption is that a student with a high GPA becomes a better doctor. That is accepted dogma everywhere. What we do know about academics is that they are terrific at following rules and are the most compliant people around. That's why they are at the top of their class.
But ask yourself, do these characteristics translate into better docs? Well, if everything regarding health and disease were known, and practicing was just the application of known, effective procedures, then I might say yes. That, however, is not the world we live in.
Chiropractors and entrepreneurs have a lot in common. We're not very good at following rules. We're not very compliant. If something isn't working, we tend to discard it, regardless of what the "book" says. It is because we are not high GPA'ers that we often think outside the box — a characteristic all successful entrepreneurs have.
There are fields high-achieving academics are well-suited for. Medicine isn't one of them. Who else would keep doing the same things that not only don't work, but leave people in worse shape because the book (best practice) says so? Dr. Rowland believes chiropractic schools' admission standards keep us inferior, but I couldn't disagree more.
John Fausett, DC
Monahans, Texas
Dynamic Chiropractic encourages letters to the editor to discuss issues relevant to the profession and/or to respond to a previously published article. Submission is acknowledgment that your letter may be published in a future issue of the publication. Submit your letter to editorial@mpamedia.com; include your full name, relevant degree(s) obtained, as well as the city and state in which you practice.
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