As I review for the 1st part of National Boards I am amazed at how much I have learned in the past year. And while Boards will test my knowledge base required to become a chiropractor, a recent conversation with one of our alumni reminded me that there is more than an academic knowledge required to become a successful chiropractor.
In this program my beliefs are challenged and I continue to grow. My view of chiropractic was very pragmatic when I started Sherman. If an adjustment fixes back pain then chiropractic works. This belief has been challenged by the question, what if the pain does not go away? What is the adjustment for?
Why are patients coming into your office? Is it to get their back pain to go away? Is it to be adjusted? Or is it to get their spines checked? The first is a very mechanistic model. I have pain; I want it to go away, so I go to the chiropractor to fix it. In this case, the chiropractor is a parts doctor. The second is a therapeutic model just like massage or physical therapy. The patient is coming to have a therapy done to them. The third is a vitalistic model. (My spell check does not even know how to spell vitalistic.) We are checking to see if the circumstance of the body can be improved.
Only the body knows exactly how to react in every circumstance. The problem with the mechanistic model is that it works on the law of averages. What is average for the public is normal for you. I have a low body temperature of 97.3°. I have always had a low temperature, but if I go to the medical doctor with a slight fever of 98.6° I am now normal. If I was humpty dumpty I would want the medical doctor to put all my parts back together again based on the average. But trying to take a pill to make my body meet the average is crazy. I am sure if there was a pill to raise your body temperature some doctor would think I needed to take it. Emergency situations are the time and place for averages.
Why is the question of why your patients come in the office even important? When we educate our patients the words we use are important. We need to have clarity of terms to have clarity and integrity of the profession.
