While the first Internet apparitions date as far back as the 1960s, most people are recognizing 2003 as its 20th anniversary. As you read its early history,1 you can't help but notice how long it took developers to lay the necessary foundation for what we have today.
As the concept took shape, professors, entrepreneurs and consumers began to see the potential. Some national governments embraced the new technology quickly; others just seemed to ignore it.
Some of the more interesting highlights over the last 20 years:
In the last seven years, ChiroWeb has grown to over 50,000 pages, enjoying over 13 million hits each month, with an average of 350,000 unique visits. According to one source, our reach is over 24 million. Total circulation for all of ChiroWeb's electronic newsletters now exceeds 140,000.
Like the Web, chiropractic has gone through an initial growth phase over nearly 110 years. We saw the exponential growth when chiropractic schools were popping up everywhere. We've overcome the doubt and discrimination from the medical community, other health care providers and the public.
You may not know it, but it was a little more than 20 years ago that the research journal Spine would not recognize or publish a doctor of chiropractic degree after a researcher's name. Today, chiropractic is in danger of being imitated by various other "alternative" health care professions.
Publicly, we've gone from being unknown to earning a general level of respect. Among the health care community, we've gone from a "questionable" profession to the point that many are asking if chiropractic really deserves the label of "alternative therapy."
We are no longer a "start-up" health profession.
Chiropractic has reached adolescence in a health care marketplace that has been forced to mature very quickly over the last two decades. While investors are looking for promised profits among the surviving Internet corporations, the public is still looking to be convinced that chiropractic is all we claim it is.
And yet another decade in chiropractic history is almost past without this profession having a viable, consistent, effective means of educating people about the value of chiropractic care. One-on-one patient testimony and referral is still the way most new patients come to our offices.
The early days of chiropractic were quite exciting; when reading about them, you can become almost intoxicated by the enthusiasm and accomplishments of our dedicated and determined pioneers. Like the beginning of the Internet, this was a time of not only survival, but definition. There were many models in the beginning, but the best approach usually wins out.
But this is a different era for both chiropractic and the Web. The environment and its challenges have changed. We have progressed to a time when issues are more complicated, clear victories are harder to win and goals are forced to be more realistic. It's no wonder that some long for the way we were!
As chiropractic enters its 12th and 13th decades, our agenda will dictate just what we can and can't accomplish. We have always shown that if we, the profession as a whole, make a goal our priority; we can make it happen; if we don't - it doesn't.
The same holds true for your practice. Your immediate (one-year) and long-term (10- to 20-year) goals will only become realities if you make them priorities.
If you have finished January without doing so, take five minutes and make a list of your short-term and long-term goals, both professional and personal. Now throw out the "wishful thinking," and decide what you will make a priority.
A lot can happen in 20 years. Make certain that you are where you really want to be, or at the very least, headed there.
References
DMP Jr.
When I graduated from chiropractic college in 1981 and started practice, I heard it all, and very little was positive. “You are a quack; you do not know what a subluxation is; you couldn’t get into a real health care program, so you chose the one that is slightly above a mail-order degree; you have no proof that chiropractic works; Are you really licensed?”, and so much more.
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A central challenge in creating our identity is that chiropractic is a method of care, not a technique or procedure. This is an important concept for us to promote. Our patients are treated with lifestyle modification, exercise, nutritional supplements, diet and a whole-body approach to accelerate the natural healing process. We are not simply CMT providers.
The results of a global survey released late last year (2023) unveiled some startling findings among medical and nursing students. The “Clinician of the Future: 2023 Education Edition” surveyed 2,212 students, of which 446 were in the United States, from 91 countries.
