Does Advancement of Our Profession Scare You?
PERSPECTIVE
Roderic A. Lacy
MD, DC, CEO of the FCPA/CPAA
Does advancement of our profession scare you? If it does, you are not the only one. Think about it—chiropractors working within the medical community on an equal level presents a unique picture. I can see it now (maybe because I have lived it for years as a DC and licensed MD). “Nurse, please hand me the aloe. It is next to the lidocaine.”
Why does anyone think our profession would turn a deaf ear toward holistic medicine because of a law change that allows for more freedom hi patient treatment? The simple fact is that it would not.
Why do you consider yourself to be a natural healer? It is simply because you were told you are. It’s not because you were born a natural healer, but because you were taught the benefits of natural health and you agreed.
Also, think about the fact that in some states, DCs have advanced rights, and yet those DCs, for the majority, continue to consider themselves natural holistic healers, not drug-pushing killers, as some leaders continue to tell us.
The pictures that our straight associations continue to paint to die world are not only incorrect, but they also might be considered criminal by some. It is ironic that we have straight leaders who testify and write letters to state legislators each time a state tries to advance their law that say DCs are ignorant and our schools are substandard.1
“XXXXXXX Senate Committee Members FROM: Dr. XXXXXXX, President of XXX University RE: SB 471 “To All Members, I'm writing to ask your support in DEFEATING SB 471. This bill, if enacted, would allow Chiropractors to prescribe dangerous drugs, controlled substances and open the door for Chiropractors to perform surgery.”
Yet they are the ones who decide what is being taught. I guess the question is: How long will we wait for these leaders to wake up and accept that a subluxation-based practice is based on a myth?2
“A review of the Current Evidence on the Epidemiology of the Subluxation Construct (Mirtz et al. 2009) also failed to find any credible evidence supporting the chiropractic vertebral subluxation theory.”
How long will we continue to listen to the falsehood that a
^The reason for advancing and licensing prescription rights for DCs is easy for almost anyone to understand.
DC cannot treat as a natural physician when he or she holds a prescriptive license? I have a medical license and a DC philosophy, and, believe it or not, they complement each other every day. Why many of our leaders “do not get it” is something I do not get. It has to be a power struggle and not because they are looking out for the best interests of our patients.
The reason for advancing and licensing prescription rights for DCs is easy for almost anyone to understand. In addition to being able to better care for your patients, there is the need to
save our profession. If our profession does not wake up very soon, we could face extinction. For starters, if we do not reread and conect the poor existing law verbiage we have in most states immediately, we stand the chance of being reduced to massage therapists within a couple of years.
Texas is the perfect example of this. By using the court system to prove chiropractors are practicing outside their law, the Texas Medical Association has shown the power an outsider can have in reducing our ability to treat patients and make a living by showing the law does not allow them the authority to treat or diagnose anything but a subluxation complex.3
“(1) uses objective or subjective means to analyze, examine, or evaluate the biomechanical condition of the spine and musculoskeletal system of the human body;2 performs nonsurgical, nonincisive procedures, including adjustment and manipulation, to improve the subluxation complex or the biomechanics of the musculoskeletal system... ”
The Texas Medical Association agreed that the Texas chiropractor can analyze, examine, or evaluate the musculoskeletal system and can adjust to improve the “subluxation complex.” The key here being “adjust to improve the subluxation complex”— adjust to improve a myth. What insurance company would pay for treating a myth?
The law does not refer to the sprain/strain that insurance
companies will pay for. This is typical verbiage in most states. We must move away from diagnosing and treating subluxations if we are to stay alive, and we must embrace evidence-based verbiage. Make no mistake that what is happening in Texas limits what DCs can do, and it can spread to all of the states that have subluxation-based laws, and most do.4
“Will TMA Succeed in Delegitimizing Chiropractic and Severely Limiting its Practice?”
Like it or not, this is the truth and this is what is happening. No insurance company will pay for a myth. Below are a handful of state laws I googled. They all potentially could be challenged. The chance that your state will be challenged, as is being done in Texas, is increasing more and more.
This Is Real. It Is Happening Now. We Need To Advance Our Laws Now.
We have allowed our leaders to keep us blind to what our laws really say and what our laws really let us do for over 100 years. The populous has always figured chiropractors are back doctors. Technically, they are not. They are subluxation gurus. Yet, DCs present themselves as licensed spinal specialists and/ or primary care physicians in almost every state. For example, when their diagnosis of a sprain/strain is questioned in court in a subluxation-based state, it’s highly probable the diagnosis will be refused.
Texas has been fighting for the most very basic tool a doctor has—to make a diagnosis. It seems like a bad dream, but it is sadly their reality. How can you file an insurance form if you cannot make a diagnosis? Forget getting paid. This argument is not about writing prescriptions. It is about not losing our philosophy while we enhance our state laws. The fight is about saving our profession and our incomes.
What our straight leaders are missing is the fact that holistic healing philosophy is something you have or you do not. It is not something you kind of have. So where do you get it? You get it from your education, experiences, and from your own self-awareness.
Our schools must continue to instill good holistic measures within all of our students regardless of our individual state laws, and we, as practicing DCs, must update our laws. Our ideas and methods are instilled within every one of us via different experiences, and no law will change our inner being. To ignore and fail to teach all aspects of health in our schools is criminal. Today, our schools feed on the ignorance of our students by refusing to offer a full curriculum. By doing so, they cheat each future patient of his or her right to receive the best health care that can be offered, and they force many of our graduates to fail in practice because of
■ ^ You get it from your education, experiences, and from your own self-awareness. J J
our limited scope of practice.
So make a difference. Join the ranks. Make your voice heaid. It’s up to all of us to keep our profession alive; united, we can achieve it.
Following are a few links to random states that will help you understand that our laws need attention:
• Texas law http://www.stahites.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/OC/ him/ OC .201 .him
• Florida Law http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statut e s i n d e x. cf m ? A p p _m o d e = D i s p l ay _ StatuteX URL=0400-0499/0460/0460. html
• New Jersey law http:/ www.njconsumeraffairs.gov/ Statutes/chiropractorlaw.pdf
• South Carolina law http://www.scstatehouse.gov/code t40c009.php
• New York law http://www.op.nysed.gov/prof/chiro/ articlel32.htm
References:
1. XXXXXXX Senate Committee Members FROM: Dr. XXXXXXX, President ofXXX University RE: SB 471 “To All Members, I in writing to ask your support in DEFEATING SB 471. This bill,
if enacted, would allow Chiropractors to prescribe dangerous drugs, controlled substances and open the door for Chiropractors to perform surgery. ”
2. “A review of the Current Evidence on the Epidemiology of the Subluxation Construct (Mirtz, el al, 2009) also failed to find any credible evidence supporting the chiropractic vertebral subluxation theory. ” https://sciencebasedmedicine.org chiropractic-vertebral-subluxations-science-vs-pseudoscience/)
3. OCCUPATIONS CODE TITLE 3. HEALTH PROFESSIONS SUBTITLE C. OTHER PROFESSIONS PERFORMING MEDICAL PROCEDURES CHAPTER 201. CHIROPRACTORS, http://www. statutes, legis. state, lx. us/Docs/OC/htm/OC.201 .htm
4. Dynamic Chiropractic, March 2017, (William Morgan, DC) Will TMA Succeed in Delegitimizing Chiropractic & Severely Limiting its Practice?, http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/ mpacms/dc/article.php ?id=5 7906).
Roderic A. Lacy, MD, DC, is a 1975 graduate of Palmer College, Davenport, Iowa and a 1997 graduate of UNIREMHOS University Medical School, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He completed three years of neurosurgical residency at Dario Contreras Trauma Hospital, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He received his Dominican medical license in general medicine and is on staff at Dario. He volunteers in the emergency room often, although he is mostly retired now. Dr. Lacy is the CEO andfounding father of the Florida Chiropractic Physician Association (FCPA) and the Chiropractic Physician Association of America (CPAA) where he also volunteers, www.myfcpa.org/www.gofcpaa.org
