For years the chiropractic profession in the state of California has labored under a vague law that implied but never described all the things we could do. Having more chiropractors concentrated in this part of the country than anywhere else, makes what happens here important throughout the rest of the world.
It's for this reason that the best legal minds were hired by the DCs in the state to nail down what we do so that it couldn't be undone. Enter the medics and their salivating henchmen -- the physical therapists. The PTs are like the storm troopers of organized medicine. Since they came closest to what we do, the MDs know that all they have to do is to aim them, and once the chiropractic profession is in the crosshairs, they'll explode.
Anyway, this unholy duo hatched this deal where they would go after the chiropractic license by stripping it of everything but adjusting. They knew that we have bimbo superstraights who wouldn't care, but they forgot (and always seem to) that in spite of the loony fringes of the profession, the vast majority are pretty sharp and are far better than the average when it comes to fighting.
During all the litigation that followed the MDs and PTs spent a lot of money to get a lot of nothing. Yes -- there are still areas in the chiropractic law that seem to be in need of change and clarification, but these problems are presently being addressed.
What counts is that the law has been amended to literally spell out the fact that we are fully entitled to use the wide range of physical therapy modalities we have been using for so long.
So what does the physical therapy association in California do to explain the loss of money and legal standing to its members and the public? Lie. One can only imagine their distress when the law was decided in chiropractic's favor.
Using our imagination, maybe a meeting of the Physical Therapy Medical Bund of California (PTMBC) went like this:
President of the PTMBC: Okay -- the meeting of the executive board will come to order. First on the agenda is a discussion of those stinking chiropractic quacks who are allowed by law to call themselves "doctors," while we can't.
Board Member #1: We will some day. We must!
President: Now calm down. No one knows better than I what it's like being in a health field limbo. Here I am with all this education and knowledge and I can't call myself a "doctor" and have to often wait for his royal highness, the almighty MD, to prescribe me.
Member #1: What's worse is that some of us have been hired to work in some dumb chiro office. Can you imagine that? Someone selling out to take orders from one of those quacks.
President: Well, that's all going to change some day. We're already giving a lot of weekend seminars on manipulation and we're buying a lot of tables that make us look like real live osteopaths. And, we're working on getting some kind of degree that has "doctor" in it -- like a Ph.D. Don't worry, some day we'll be free of the MD yoke and the scourge of the chiroQUACKtors.
Member #1: But, what about this new ruling on the chiropractic law? It gives then the full use of modalities. I mean I hear rumblings from some of the members that they're upset about how their dues were misused and that we just became dupes of the medics.
President: Maybe we should lie.
Member #1: Like how?
President: Well, we could go on about how great we are and how we got what we wanted. Then in an obscure paragraph we can make some reference about the chiros using physical agents of some kind without saying what. In other words, we'll distort things so much that the public and our membership won't know that the chiros won.
Member #1: I don't know about that. The chiros may be uneducated boobs, but they hang pretty tough sometimes. I mean, I know a few I wouldn't want to meet in a professional dark alley.
Member #2: Excuse me, but I believe both of you are not quite right. You see, DCs aren't boobs. Oh sure, some might be. Like some of those loony superstraights they have or some of the old-timers that weren't privileged to be exposed to the sophisticated educational processes the chiropractic colleges have today. But the chiropractic of today is pretty sharp. I've visited some of their schools and read their catalogues and I'm impressed. The students have to take premed college courses with an above average GPA before they're allowed to matriculate to a chiropractic school. Then their course of study lasts for almost another five academic years in residence at some of the most sophisticated academic facilities I've seen. Before they can be licensed, they must then take a comprehensive three-part national board examination followed, in most cases, by state board examinations.
President: But ...
Member #2: While they might not take as many hours in the use of modalities as we do, they take, as an average, twice as many hours in physical therapy as the medics take in pharmacology, and the MDs can prescribe drugs until our diathermies blow.
President: Yeah, but ...
Member #2: And don't think that the DCs don't have a good background in physical therapy. I mean, they were teaching formal courses in physical therapy as early as 1914 -- long before there was anything called a physical therapy "profession." Then, too, the chiros are taught a full range of physical, differential, and clinical diagnostic procedures. And they have about five times as many hours in radiology as the average medic. In other words, with the exception of a few superstraights, the average young men and women graduating from chiropractic colleges are bright and well-educated physicians who can examine, diagnose, and then treat their patients with natural therapeutics better than any other profession. The fact is reflected by increased political acceptance and the continued growth in the numbers applying at their teaching institutions.
President: Say, who are you anyway?
Member #2: Oh, I'm a physical therapist like you. One who is tired of acting like some kind of prescription item for some pompous MDs. One who wants to be a real doctor instead of a glorified technician.
President: You mean ...
Member #2: Yes, I'm joining many of my physical therapist colleagues and have decided to go to chiropractic college to become a chiropractic physician.
President: Get out of here you uneducated quack! Now let's get on with this news release.
Member #1: What school did you say you were going to?
President: Now wait a minute. Isn't anyone going to help me totally distort the truth so that our membership won't come after us for wasting all that money? Come on everybody -- anybody. Where did you say that school was?
Okay, it never happened, but if they were smart, it would have.
RHT