The Works Not Done!

Randall Hammett, DC

INTRODUCTION

At a recent family gathering at my home, some nephews and nieces were playing around the house, one of them brought me a paper--I wish you could have seen it. It was written by an 11 year old girl. On the top of the paper, it read Medical Form, then first name, last name, reason: it said my thought is that I can’t talk because I have a cold. Time in and time out, doctors recommended medicine for head and neck aches is Advil. Then it said healthy or not healthy and next to it said okay.

The Prescription

Now I wish I could’ve shown you this 2x4 piece of paper because it was written out like a prescription. This 11-year-old's mother and father are not doctors, and when I asked her what this was about, she said that this is what doctors do when you have a cold, they write down which route to follow with your name. Then, they give you some pills that make you feel better and this is how it looks when it is written out and given to you!

The Real Fight

You see with all the battling from within and without of chiropractic a lot of us begin to lose sight of what BJ Palmer DC said so many years ago. That we are all born into a medical medicine bottle and we all learn from seeing what others do and how they react when it comes to healthcare. The mission of chiropractic is much more than removing subluxation; although that is a major job. The real fight with the chiropractic profession and the world is to educate our public on what they thought they have been educated on. The powers of the control of media, the public idea and what healthcare is, this is now stronger than the one BJ Palmer lived in.

Even with our own profession there are those who think that we need to prescribe drugs to help the body heal itself. I know for me it is getting harder and harder after 30 years of private practice to continually try to reeducate patients about the truth and facts of health and what they can do to sustain it. But, it is a fight worth fighting for, even if you have just saved one life, extended one life, and prevented future disease and systems from affects of drugs and surgery. Then you can call yourself a chiropractic excavation point.

The Danger

All the therapies, medication, and surgeries in the world do not get people well. If you really want to help someone in your community and the world you have to go about it in a different way. In my 30 years of practice I’ve seen the chiropractic profession become more conservative over time, more leery of examining boards, attorneys and the public opinion. The chiropractic profession has spent the last 50 years trying to make itself respectable in the eyes of the medical community and the public. This is an admirable goal, but is fraught with danger.

The danger is losing the identity of chiropractic and the promise that it holds to help the sick and the dying world. If history teaches us anything, it is the radicals, the dreamers and the ones who step outside the box and into the parameters of chiropractic that will tell the world what we really do and how we do it. If this profession is to survive and to thrive it must become united, it must have a basic understanding and agreement of what chiropractic is and is not. It must be written into law and enforced by legislative bodies to hold the chiropractic profession accountable for its own rules. There always will be those within the profession that will do odd things, especially in times of financial or economic chaos.

SUMMARY

The chiropractic profession has survived by telling the truth about healthcare, by working outside of the medical mainstream of third-party insurance interference, and unethical chiropractors whose review from insurance companies only allows eight visits to correct a retro lordotic cervical spine. It is a balance that you must tread each day, but understand in the end it is your patient that holds you accountable and not the insurance industry, the medical profession and not even your peers. It is your patients and their understanding of what you do and why you do it, what’s in it for them and this ultimately, controls their destiny and that of our profession.

So, the next adjustment you perform, the next life that you enhance or that you save may very well be your own, and that of your profession. Till next time.