There is an alarming trend growing in the straight chiropractic movement. It is a tendency to be less than totally honest with potential patients concerning the chiropractic objective. This tendency is most clearly seen in our advertising and promotion. Perhaps we need to face the truth that other than general information about our office, location, hours, etc. there is very little in the way of chiropractic advertising that is consistent with the straight philosophy. It hardly makes sense to advertise anymore. In most areas the chiropractor's ad will just get lost with the multitude of other chiropractic ads. What's worse is that the straight will be associated with the others, most of whom are undoubtedly mixers. Added to that, the straight cannot compete with a mixer who is advertising that he treats a multitude of conditions and has all types of ancillary procedures available to the patient. This makes advertising less than a desirable approach to building a practice. But the real problem with chiropractic advertising is that many straights are advertising symptoms and conditions. The ads or statements are so worded that a second trimester student would know the chiropractor was not claiming to cure or even treat those conditions. But our advertising is not aimed at second trimester chiropractic students. It is directed toward lay people, most of whom at best are totally ignorant of what chiropractic is. Most likely they believe it to be a treatment for a limited number of physical ills. That is what the other chiropractors in the area have been advertising. So when we make statements in our advertisements like "whatever your health problem, chiropractic can help you," or "chiropractic helps people with headaches," or "people with high blood pressure should visit a chiropractor," we are not being totally honest. Sure, we know that any individual with a headache, high blood pressure, or any other condition is better off with a good nerve supply and that is what straight chiropractic does. That is what we are saying. But that is not what the public is hearing! Let's be honest with ourselves. People are going to get confused about chiropractic if we make it crystal clear. If we confuse the issue or muddy the waters with questionable statements, there is no chance in the world that they are going to understand what we are saying. We cannot use the old excuse "well, when they come into the office I'll explain what chiropractic is all about." First, they will not understand. Even if they do, they will think your advertising is dishonest. Secondly, what about those who never come into your office? They have been given a distorted picture of what chiropractic is. It is time for a new and different approach to marketing straight chiropractic. The problem is that most of the seminars and most of the practice building procedures are trying to market a new concept, that of life and health by maintaining the integrity of the nervous system with old marketing strategies, symptoms and disease. Those approaches have not gotten us anywhere to date, unless you believe being a back pain and stiff neck specialist is where we want to be. We need some new strategies. But they have to be practical, something that the average American can understand. We have enough esoteric seminars out there. Most are being taught by chiropractors who have been removed from practice for ten to fifteen years. They have forgotten what it is like to try to get chiropractic across to the average person and that is who we must reach. Unless we begin a new and totally non-therapeutic marketing strategy, chiropractic is destined to another one hundred years of residing on the fringes of public acceptance.
THOUGHTS ON IMPROVING OUR PROFESSION
One of the major problems that faces the straight chiropractic movement is convincing young people entering the colleges and the profession in general of the advantage of practicing straight chiropractic. This problem occurs because many are drawn to the profession for reasons other than those consistent with straight chiropractic. There are basically three reasons why an individual chooses to become a chiropractor. Some choose the profession for one of the reasons, some two and others all three. Understanding these reasons may help us to focus our attention in the proper areas in attracting the most desirable people into our profession. The first reason why chiropractic is chosen as a career is to make money. It is no secret that many chiropractors are making great incomes. Considering the length of education and amount of hours spent practicing per week, chiropractic is much more lucrative than any of the other so-called health fields. One can make more money for a smaller expenditure of time practicing chiropractic than medicine or dentistry. Unfortunately, if making money is the reason for entering chiropractic practice more can be made practicing mixing chiropractic than straight chiropractic. There is one seven figure chiropractor in this area who some days does not even come into the office. Assistants put the patients on the machines while he is off to a practice building seminar. Obviously, the adjustment is not an integral or even necessary part of his practice. Many young people graduating from straight schools drift into mixing because of the pressure of school loans and other debts hanging over their heads. Clearly, a mixing practice is more lucrative than a straight. The second reason why some enter into the chiropractic profession is that they want the prestige of being a doctor and chiropractic is the fastest, easiest, and least expensive way to do it. It takes longer to become a Ph.D. or dentist and neither of them are considered real doctors. True, being a chiropractor does not have the prestige of being a medical doctor but we are getting there. This increase in prestige is largely due to the efforts of the mixing part of the profession. You see, straight chiropractic actually de-emphasizes the doctor image and the accompanying prestige. The emphasis in straight chiropractic is on the doctor within. The practitioner places himself/herself in a secondary role as merely an assistant to the innate intelligence of the patient's body in the healing and health process. The patient education objective of the straight chiropractor is to undermine the confidence of the patient in doctors of all kinds with regard to the proper running of his or her body and instead develop the patient's confidence in his or her own body's ability to heal and maintain itself in a state of health. Furthermore, if the body is past the point of being able to do that we must admit that we as chiropractors are helpless to benefit the patient. This understanding and information contributes greatly to the well-being of the patient but it does very little for the ego and prestige of the chiropractor. For those who enter the profession for prestige, being a mixer has much greater attraction. Much of the effort of the mixing aspect of the profession is spent denigrating and attacking the abilities and procedures of medical practice, all the while desiring to utilize those procedures or practices side by side with the physicians they criticize. The idea is if medicine accepts us, that will be the biggest boost to our prestige possible. Medicine will accept us when we begin to practice medicine. That is the objective of mixing chiropractic to practice medicine. The third reason why people choose the chiropractic profession is because they want to help people. It's true. Altruism did not end with the 60's generation. There are still a few people dedicated to serving mankind who are entering the chiropractic profession. Often, and this is the sad part, these people are lost to mixing chiropractic. You see, the straight chiropractor is faced with the problem of giving people something they do not know they need and don't really think they want which will benefit them in ways they probably will not be able to see. Most people do not know they are walking around with nerve interference because of a vertebral subluxation. It is not causing them a noticeable problem. What most people want or think they want is relief from their symptoms or to get rid of their disease. That is not what straight chiropractic is offering. It is what mixing chiropractic has to offer. The benefits of straight chiropractic care are not very demonstrable. How do you measure a healthier, better functioning body? How do you demonstrate that you will live longer with a good nerve supply than with vertebral subluxations? You cannot measure or empirically demonstrate these things even though they are the reality of health care. They must be proven by a step by step, systematic, logical presentation of the chiropractic philosophy. The real challenge of practicing straight chiropractic is making the effort day in and day out to convince people that you have something which is absolutely essential and vital to their health and that there is nowhere else they can get it and there are no alternatives or substitutes. Too many chiropractors have never learned this concept themselves and so their altruism has a misanthropic result. They cater to the base desires of people (treating their symptoms) while neglecting their vital needs. Or worse, those that have learned the concept and know it are frustrated by the lack of receptivity to it, are too lazy to keep on keeping on and so begin to give people what they want symptomatic relief. The people are happy, walking out of the chiropractor's office with their bad back or stiff neck feeling better. The chiropractor rationalizes that by doing this he has "helped them." But he conveniently forgets the fact that by practicing chiropractic on this level he has condemned that patient to a life less than what it could or should be and perhaps a premature death. The straight chiropractic profession needs a renewal. We cannot place straight chiropractic on a competitive level with mixing chiropractic when it comes to making money or having prestige. We must stop trying to attract people to the profession on that basis. We can forget about getting people away from mixing for any reason except to convince them the greatest thing that they can do for their fellow man in the area of health is to correct vertebral subluxation, teach them the chiropractic philosophy, and nothing else.
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
There is quite a controversy within our profession over the use of non-prescription drugs and there are even a few advocating the limited use of prescription drugs. The one side argues that we must move with the times, recognizing the value of medication in certain situations. The other group argues that chiropractic has historically chosen to be a drugless profession and that we should respect and tenaciously adhere to that historical position. I must disagree with those who maintain that chiropractic historically chose to be drugless. It did not. Chiropractic was drugless because giving drugs was not consistent with our philosophy. We established a philosophy. Being drugless was just the natural outgrowth of that philosophy. It was not necessary to choose it. In fact, it never occurred to our founding fathers to add drugs because that would be totally inconsistent with the principles of practice. There was no need to think about, debate over, or hold state board hearings as to whether we should or should not. It was totally unthinkable. It was not unthinkable because drugs were bad or dangerous, but because deductive reasoning concluded that the use of drugs would be a divorcement from the reality of our philosophy and would be totally hypocritical. If we historically chose not to associate ourselves with drugs, we would have left open the option to change our minds. All branches of science and the healing arts change their minds often. Medicine is now changing its mind concerning chiropractic. Osteopathy began as a drugless healing art. At a point in its history, however, it changed and chose to incorporate the use of drugs and surgery. Its philosophy (or lack of philosophy) allowed it. We did not choose to exclude drugs from our procedure. It was dictated to us by the chiropractic philosophy. But then so were many other things. It really does not matter whether the drug is over the counter or not. It does not matter whether the drug is man-made or found in nature. It may even be a vitamin used to treat a disease. It does not matter whether it is injected into the body or created by stimulating the body's own chemical producing system by such things as acupuncture or the newest gadget which supposedly "stimulates the brain at specific frequencies" producing such chemicals as endorphins, seratonin, norepinephrne and catecholamine. Our philosophy taught from the beginning that medicine educatedly determines what is best for the body and goes about choosing the most effective method of bringing about their desired result. It just so happens that in the past 100 years that method has been the use of pharmaceuticals. Chiropractic, on the other hand, does not educatedly decide what physiological functions should be occurring in the body. Instead we remove an interference at the vertebral level which enables the innate intelligence of the body to determine what is best for the organism. If you understand our historical, philosophical perspective and our present straight chiropractic philosophy, then it is not even an option to make a choice to be drugless or to use drugs.
