Quack

As I venture into my fourth week of private practice, I have noticed a trend.  This trend is one that is worth a blog post, clearly.

Could this trend be one of mistrust, fear and anxiety toward chiropractic?  Why would there be such resistance to an ethical approach to care?  Lets explore...

I've noticed since being in practice, a lack of trust with chiropractic.  Of course, you could throw me under the bus with being "new" to practice or whatever, but you cannot discount entering a fire fight with a knife.

The fact is, we are seen as non-expert, unprofessional, quacks whenever we open our mouths.  When we advise manual therapy or rehab to be done 'onsite' in our clinics, we are viewed as the devilish chiropractor that is only in it for the money.  Obviously, this upsets me because new patients have lumped me into this category without any effort to earn such a response.

If the profession could take some needed notes from a newby doctor, I'd say, quit thinking with such short projections and change your mindset to a 5-year or 10-year plan that solidly plants you into your community.  When I say plant, I am hoping you know what that means.  In my mind, it means to be trusted and viewed with integrity versus being viewed as a money driven quack.

When I decided to stay with chiropractic, I told myself I would not let the discrimination bother me, but as the weeks tick by and the offensive, demoralizing things happen, I tend to sway toward the pissy-end of the spectrum.

What can be done?  Don't be a quack is the only thought that comes to my mind.  Believe that the mission of providing conservative orthopedic care is worth it's shortcomings and adherence to the ideology of health via fitness is actually plausible.

I look at the handful of patients that have pushed away and those that have committed to my approach and I see two different sets of people.  One has the goal of achieving a pain free life through the use of my care and adoption of home-based therapy and the other wants a quick fix.  I can't judge the quick fix folks though because they have been conditioned to look at health care this way over the matter of decades.

We aren't all quacks, is my statement.  There is a large group of chiropractors that I pride myself to be in the presence of, professionally.  We see eye-to-eye and we approach patient's with objective minds and clear goals that sway from the mainstream allocation of pharmacy for symptom reduction.

The nice thing is, we are not stuck using a set methodology that consists of Norco, Naproxen and Flexeril for any ache or pain.  At our clinic, we utilize a unique/ethical approach.

All for now,

Dr. Spangler
Trailhead Chiropractic