Dr. Carl S. Cleveland III is a fourth-generation doctor of chiropractic, grandson of the founders, and the third president of Cleveland Chiropractic College, now Cleveland University-Kansas City (CUKC), and including its College of Chiropractic and College of Health Sciences.
Dr. Cleveland is a tireless ambassador for the chiropractic profession having served as president of the Association of Chiropractic Colleges and president of the Council on Chiropractic Education, a member of the Board of Directors of the Association for the History of Chiropractic, the National Chiropractic Legal Action Fund, and the William M. Harris Family Foundation.
He is a founding member of the Chiropractic Summit, the Council on Chiropractic Guides and Practice Parameters (today’s Clinical Compass), and has served as a national spokesperson for the ACA/ICA Alliance for Chiropractic Progress. He is an international lecturer, and has authored and co-authored numerous texts, and publications. Like his father and grandfather before him, Dr. Cleveland III teaches Foundations in Philosophy and Science of Chiropractic to the first term students at CUKC. January 2023 will mark his fiftieth year in chiropractic education.
In an interview with The American Chiropractor (TAC), Dr. Carl Cleveland (CC) shared about the beginnings of his pioneering chiropractic family, who were his mentors throughout his career, and invited us to celebrate the anticipated Cleveland Centennial...
TAC: What drew your grandparents to chiropractic and to educating chiropractors?
CC: “The Cleveland story begins with Sylva L (Burdick) Ashworth. Prepared for a career in teaching, she graduated in 1892 from Peru Normal College located southeast of Lincoln Nebraska. She had given birth to five children by age 25, but she and Mr. Ashworth separated and he traveled south. Sylva Ashworth was left to raise her children and manage the family farm near Eagle, in Cass County, Nebraska. At about the same time she developed severe health problems, including symptoms of diabetes. Her health had deteriorated so aggressively her attending medical practitioners advised that she may have three to four months to live at best, and to put her affairs in order. Resigned to her fate, Sylva divided her farm among family members and arranged for her children’s care after her death. Knowing of Sylva’s plight, her sister Lucy suggested that she seek the assistance of a new kind of healer, Dr. A.C. Eaton, who practiced something called chiropractic. With nothing to lose for trying, she rented several rooms for herself and her children within walking distance of Eaton’s clinic where she received daily chiropractic adjustments. It was reported that after several weeks of care, the chemistry of diabetes resolved, and her other symptoms greatly improved.
Attributing her recovery to Eaton’s care, Mrs. Ashworth determined to devote her life to chiropractic. She mortgaged her 80-acre farm in order to raise funds, and moved herself and at least two of her children to Davenport, Iowa. She earned her doctorate in chiropractic at the Palmer School of Chiropractic on May 31, 1910. At the age of 35 the future “GRANDMOTHER of CHIROPRACTIC” began her professional career in Lincoln, Nebraska; a legend was about to begin.
Dr. Ashworth became a vocal activist in chiropractic, organizing the Nebraska Chiropractic Association in her living room, later co-founding the Nebraska State Board, and became the first woman president of the Universal Chiropractors’ Association. As reported in the Des Moines Register newspaper, she created scandal when she insisted on entering the Nebraska State Penitentiary to treat prisoners.
Sylva inspired her daughter, Ruth Ashworth, to follow her example, and to enroll at the Palmer School. Daughter Ruth met and married Palmer classmate Carl S. Cleveland in 1917; the ceremony was held at the Palmer mansion, and B.J. Palmer gave the bride away. The union would set in motion several more generations of Cleveland chiropractors and a tradition in chiropractic education.
Young 1917 chiropractic graduates, Carl and Ruth Cleveland, started their first practice in Webster City Iowa, then in 1919 relocated to Kansas City. With the encouragement of the local chiropractors of that day and 3 students, they founded Central College of Chiropractic in 1922, as a non-profit educational institution chartered in the state of Missouri. My grandparents’ vision, simply stated, to help sick patients get well through the teachings and practice of chiropractic. Today the institution they founded celebrates its 100th anniversary as Cleveland University-Kansas City, with now 633 students across eight degree programs, including the doctor of chiropractic program.
TAC: In the early days of the profession, there were a large number of chiropractic educational programs across the country. Why has Cleveland stayed strong through these past 100 years?
CC: Today there are eighteen chiropractic programs offered on 21 campuses accredited by the Council on Chiropractic Education - USA. However, many of the early chiropractic programs simply could not survive financially, and in addition, in many states their graduates were arrested based on laws that interpreted chiropractic to be the unlicensed practice of medicine.
As example, the Chiropractic practice act in the state of Missouri was not enacted until 1927, five years after the founding of Cleveland College in 1922, and until the time of state licensure, my grandparents, along with the other DCs practiced under the threat and fear of arrest. The college at that time was in a Victorian style duplex located in the northeast part of Kansas City. This duplex served as the clinic, the classrooms and as the residence that my grandparents and father lived in. The downstairs kitchen was converted to a chemistry lab and the upstairs kitchen was converted to human dissection.
As a child, my father was instructed to remain motionless if there was a knock at the door until his parents could peek through the curtains to determine if the caller was a patient, a prospective student or a sheriff’s office agent sent to arrest his parents for the illegal practice of medicine without a license. In that era the Kansas City police department issued a special regulation thick sole boot that was conducive to walking. The DCs of that day quickly learned to look to the shoe first before opening the door.
Even in my lifetime, chiropractors in many states including New York, Massachusetts and Louisiana were subjected to sweeping arrests organized by state medical boards; chiropractic couples, husband and wife teams, were placed behind bars while their frightened children could only wonder what would become of them. Political medicine tried to shut down our clinics and intimidate us, showing us no mercy and no compassion for our patients.
And why has Cleveland survived all this abuse for all these years? Because of an enduring commitment for now over five generations, to serve the sick that need our help, and because of a driving passion for every American to know, value, and take benefit of chiropractic care. Chiropractic offers patients something they can get nowhere else. The public we serve recognizes that when they need a doctor of chiropractic, seeing a doctor of medicine simply will not do!
My daughter Dr. Ashley and my son Dr. Carl IV also graduated from Cleveland, and represent the fifth generation of Clevelands in chiropractic.
TAC: As a fourth generation chiropractor and member of a pioneering chiropractic family, who are some of the people who made the biggest impact on you?
CC: First and foremost, my grandparents, Drs. Carl Sr. and Ruth, and parents, Drs. Carl Jr. and Mildred, were my most impactful mentors. As a young child conversations surrounding chiropractic were served up with each family meal. We rarely took family vacations, but traveled to chiropractic conventions. With my grandparents being Palmer graduates, each August the family attended Palmer Homecomings in Davenport, Iowa. I was expected to sit in long meetings, generally on the front row with parents and grandparents on either side, and facing the stage watching such pioneers like Clay Thompson, founder of the Thompson Technique, and Clarence Gonstead, the developer of the Gonstead Technique. I still remember the stench of B. J. Palmer’s cigar. As a young boy I resented those stuffy meetings, but today, I would not trade those memories for anything.
It has been so gratifying to have known many of the key leaders that have shaped this profession, from across the AC A, the ICA, and World Federation of Chiropractic, and also to witness the profession’s prideful moments, such as the excitement for the profession’s inclusion in Medicare, when the last state, Louisiana, finally licensed chiropractors in 1974, and the US Department of Education’s approval of the Council on Chiropractic, which brought recognition for our colleges, and financial aid to our students. I knew Dr. Chester Wilk and the other plaintiffs that were part of the landmark legal victory Wilk vs. AMA as well as attorney George McAndrews, and remember celebrating the announcement of the victory in that trial in 1987.
Why was the victory in the Wilk case so significant? This legal decision facilitated the profession’s opportunity to compete in the health care marketplace, including chiropractic researchers publishing in scholarly journals, the opportunities for interdisciplinary patient referrals, and cooperative multidisciplinary practice relationships common today.
Today’s generation of graduates must never forget that for more than a century political medicine tried to “contain and eliminate” the profession of chiropractic.
We will never know just how many patients lingered in pain and suffering because political medicine had frightened them away from seeing a doctor of chiropractic.
So many of the pioneering individuals and events that I have known over my 75 years growing up in a chiropractic family, have been memorable for me. These pioneers lit a torch, they have passed that torch to us. And it is this next generation’s responsibility to go forth and sustain the flame.
TAC: What would you advise someone who is considering chiropractic as a career?
CC: Today’s doctor of chiropractic is fast emerging as the health care professional for the diagnosis, care and prevention of functional disorders of the spine and other parts of the musculoskeletal system. The practice of chiropractic focuses on maintaining proper spinal function and its relationship to the nervous system and good health. The awareness of chiropractic has never been greater. And while most graduates enter private practice, today doctors of chiropractic practice in over 200 Veterans Administration facilities, at over 66 military treatment facilities, and in corporate wellness centers at Google, Cisco, Apple, and Target. DCs serve as part of the health care team for all 32 National Football Teams and 28 of the 30 Major League Baseball Teams, and with Olympic athletes.
Why the increasing cultural authority? Research has brought credibility and has clearly affirmed the effectiveness, the cost savings and safety of chiropractic care. And with the tragedy of addiction to prescribed pain killers, the need for a non-drug approach to pain management has never been greater. A career in chiropractic provides the opportunity set one’s own hours, to have control of your own life, but most importantly, to enjoy the priceless reward and genuine gratitude from the men, women, and children whose lives you change through chiropractic care. Looking beyond chiropractic’s role in pain management, being a doctor of chiropractic is about improving function, mobility, and coordination, and the activities of daily living, and health promotion. Today’s graduates become young businessmen and businesswomen, and valued members of their communities. From the factory worker who is able to return to the plant pain free on Monday morning and earn a day’s wage, to the third grade teacher who now goes into her class free of migraine headaches, the chiropractor is the hero. For the corporate executive who wants to improve his weekend golf swing, or for the grandparent wanting to pick up the grandchild after church with full mobility, the chiropractor is the hero.
My advice to a young person seeking a meaningful and rewarding career in chiropractic, is to go to the webpage of the Council on Chiropractic education (cce-usa.org) or the Association of Chiropractic Colleges website (chirocolleges.org). Reach out to the admissions office at a chiropractic program of their choice and arrange for a campus tour and to shadow a graduate in practice, and observe firsthand the meaningful joy of being a doctor of chiropractic.
TAC: Tell us about the Cleveland Centennial 2022 & Midwest Annual Conference and Expo? Who should attend and why?
CC: This CUKC celebration is bringing over 30 speakers to Kansas City across a variety of disciplines, addressing the best practices in chiropractic patient care, adjusting technique, sports, pediatrics, women in chiropractic, animal chiropractic, and business practices. Leaders, researchers, and clinicians from across the profession, those who have written the textbooks on chiropractic, will be presenting as part of this celebration. This event is bringing together representatives from the ACA, the ICA and the American Black Chiropractic Association, among others from across the profession. The keynote speaker is Shaun White, the Olympic medalist. There’s something for everyone. In addition to the 20 hours of license renewal, there will be on-campus events with music and entertainment. Registration is at expo2022.cleveland.edu
To contact Dr. Cleveland III, pleasevisitwww.cleveland.edu.
