We Don't Need a Name Change
Dear Editor:
On the subject of "A Name Change Will Save Our Profession" [Dr. Michael Reuben, August issue], after practicing for the past 20-plus years, I am constantly amused at how so many within our profession are constantly looking for solutions to the obvious. Really; a name change will save our profession? It couldn't have anything to do with how you choose to practice?
As the old chiropractors used to say, "Take care of your first 500 patients and they will take care of you for life." This keep-it-simple-stupid philosophy is no different than any other practice, profession or business. Nowhere in that advice is the 300-visit plan, the undefinable subluxation snake-oil justifications for every possible condition, the paranoid isolationism, the free mall-gym or weekend swap-meet adjustments, or the profession's refusal to define or govern itself.
By contrast, it is funny how similar the successful people in every business and profession are. They understand the opportunity; are constantly learning, observing and growing; have studied, learned and honed their skill before starting out on their own; have a clear business plan with optimal, scalable protocols; and are open minded, competitive and have an unwavering work ethic. This leaves no room to accept or hide behind excuses.
Within this group, I have also found no discrimination, no exclusion and with 100 percent certainty, no suggestion that any failing business can ever save itself by changing its name.
The lights are not off, folks; those are your hands over your eyes.
Trevor Robertson, DC
La Jolla, Calif.
"A Ridiculous Article"
Dear Editor:
This comment is in response to the ridiculous article written by Michael Reuben, DC. Your idea of "rebranding" our profession is way off course. The word you are searching for is physician. Our profession has fought in the trenches to equal our colleagues; medical physicians, osteopathic physicians, and chiropractic physicians. We don't call them medics, or osteopaths, and we need to drop the technical term chiropractor.
Hopefully your search to "save our profession" can be over by just using a word that is universally accepted: physician.
Thomas Montgomery, DC, FACO, DAAPM
Middlefield, Ohio
Professional Treason
Dear Editor:
Of all the weak-kneed arguments to come from a chiropractor about how are profession needs to change; this really takes the cake. How dare you call yourself a chiropractor? As for the suggested name changes, not only were they insulting; they were also absurd and degrading.
Since 1895, chiropractic has been our name "To Honor Hippocrates," who was the first to consider the spine and nervous system as a focus on health, which Galen, the Roman physician, advanced with his own studies into the subject. Changing our name would do nothing but fan the flame of disdain by our detractors, who have for over a century now tried in vain to bring us down with nothing more than repeated ignorance.
Our profession has no need to change its name. What we have to change is our internal climate. My father once said that the reason chiropractors do not get along is because we are, for the most part, iconoclastic. We each have thought long and hard about this profession, and we each have come up with some very ingenious ideas to further the science of chiropractic. With each of us achieving tremendous results, this tends to strengthen our ego, which angers our detractors, who cannot figure out why we keep getting people well in spite of what they think they know about us.
The only reason chiropractic is not on top of the health care industry is because we keep playing the game according to rules of the game, which our detractors keep changing to suit their ends. Their ends are the containment and elimination of our profession. This absurd suggestion that the trouble we face is because people are somehow put off by the chosen name of our noble and sadly harassed profession is nothing short of professional treason.
Richard Bend, DC
Monterey, Calif.
