Chiropractic Assistants as Whistleblowers: An Invitation to

[fyslee]

Chiropractic Assistants as Whistleblowers: An Invitation to Activism

Are you in doubt about the chiropractic profession? Are you a CA who
has doubts about the ethics of what is happening
where you work? Has your employer attempted to enlist your support
in getting patients to receive unnecessary treatments? Has your
chiro sent you to Dynamic Essentials seminars, or the A.C.E.
(Assistants for Chiropractic Excellence) Program? Are you the victim
of practice building thinking? Are your morals and ethics becoming
eroded? Is your chiro into wellness care, maintenance treatments,
weird and unscientific practices, fraudulent billing, insurance
scams, etc.? Does the "Description of a Practice in The 500 Club"
below look familiar?

If so, Chirotalk has started the Chiropractic Assistant Forum just
for you. Read about the whole project here:
http://www.geocities.com/healthbase/ca_whistleblowers.html

**********

Please give me some feedback and ideas. Also spread this invitation
to as many different blogs, lists, boards and groups as you can. We
need to alert as many chiros and CAs as possible to this new
endeavor.


Regards,

Paul Lee, PT

The Quack-Files
http://www.quackfiles.com

Paul's Blog: Confessions of a Quackbuster
http://quackfiles.blogspot.com/

ChiroLinks
http://chirolinks.quackfiles.com

Chirotalk(SM): The Skeptical Chiropractic Discussion Forum
http://chirotalk.proboards3.com/index.cgi

Anti-Quackery Ring
http://g.webring.com/hub?ring=antiquackerysite

Skeptic Ring
http://l.webring.com/hub?ring=skeptic

__________________________________

[bernard]

Hello Paul,

Welcome on Somasimple Board.

Situation in France is not fortunately so dramatic than US. Chriropractors are a very rare job since it is not a recognized health profession. A Chiropractor acts ever against laws, here. And I do not know a sole chiro who have an assistant!

Lyon (the greatest town close to where I inhabit), 1,000,000 inhabitants counts less than 10 real qualified chiropractors. Much more osteopaths.

France is not yet contamined.

[fyslee]

Hey Bernard,

Yes, the situation in Europe is different than in the USA and Canada. Even in the countries where chiropractic is an officially recognized profession (which unfortunately includes Denmark, where I live), it is a different situation.

Many of the unethical practices so common (and considered absolutely normal) in chiropractic, are a natural result of practice building mentality. We can thank BJ Palmer for that. The whole so-called "profession" is really a "business", and chiropractors are trained to sell themselves and to sell chiropractic. They are educated in indoctrination methods, just as much as Jehovahs Witnesses and Scientologists. It is a proselytising business, and many chiropractors function as salesmen and missionaries for their business.

When the practice builders start getting more active in Europe, we will begin to see more of the same problems which are so common in the USA and Canada.

I have a question for you. I know that practicing as a chiropractor has been illegal in France. Is that still the case?

Earlier, chiropractors in France would study medicine, then set up their practice as a real MD's office, then promptly forget all their scientific training and actually practice chiropractic under the protection of being a medical doctor.

I have recently started a blog, and I am posting a number of things there. You are welcome to take a look and make some comments:

Confessions of a Quackbuster
http://quackfiles.blogspot.com/

[Diane]

Hi Paul and Bernard,
Here is a link that was posted on chirotalk that is a site to help people who have been injured by manipulation to the high neck, regardless who by:
http://www.neck911usa.com/index.htm

It would be interesting to see if France has a lower incidence of these types of strokes because of manips being illegal... well, almost..
Diane

[bernard]

We have a joke about this problem!

Patients who ask; Where could I find an osteopath (chiro works too)?
Other health professions habitually reply; near the ambulance!

By the way, if a non legit fails, he goes in jail, if a legit fails, it's fate!

[bernard]

A French GP made some evil too. He is called MAIGNE (his son is worse) and invented a technique called vertebraetherapy. It is learnt in a weekend and sold with some gold fees. Of course, for this man, osteopathy, chiropractors and PTs are not really well seen.

He said that PT cares are irrelevant in LBP and spinal problems. He said, too, that he has a solution for those problems!

[Anonymous]

A French GP made some evil too. He is called MAIGNE (his son is worse) and invented a technique called vertebraetherapy. It is learnt in a weekend and sold with some gold fees. Of course, for this man, osteopathy, chiropractors and PTs are not really well seen.

He said that PT cares are irrelevant in LBP and spinal problems. He said, too, that he has a solution for those problems!

Wow :shock:
This discussion is so popular that i have to say something.
Spine treatment is different from place to place.
I say my country, and many chinese people like to do manipulation, especially at neck and lumbar pain. 1) Because they fell that it can make them fell comfortablely as soon as possible. 2) they want to hear the ''click or pop'' sound which they think they have already treated/cue.

I don't know the spine manipulation is a good way to treat spine disorder, but it is a way to treat people away from the spine pain, right?
According to the review papers, it doesn't double that spine manipulation is an another way to do if you want to choice this technique.

[Diane]

Guest, the thread was started by Paul Lee who lives in Denmark. His interest is to expose quackery, not to have people stop manipulating. (I personally don't think manipulation is safe for the high neck, but that's my own opinion which is not shared by all.. ). The point is, manipulation is a tool, and should never have given rise to an entire profession in and of itself.

The problem is with the deeply different training of traditional chiropractic:

1. Belief based rather than science based: the chiropractic manipulation system is not about detecting a physical problem, assessing it, and deciding whether to manipulate it or use some other strategy (i.e.: manipulation as one tool out of many..); It's about learning to believe in invisible subluxations, or blocks in nervous system flow, by impingments in the spinal column, and manipulate to remove them.

2. Competition with ordinary medical practice: The belief is instilled that manipulation will cure whatever ails you, there is a strong bias in many schools that regular medicine is evil and that recieving chiropractic treatment is the only way to be healthy. The trend among chiros is to advise against vaccinations etc. Chiropractors are not taught standard differential diagnosis, indeed they don't "believe" in illness. Everything is fine as long as you can be adjusted regularly. They sell 'adjustment' as prevention or insurance against illness. They believe in subluxation, not in "disease".

3. Comptetition with other practitioners of manipulation: In many states in the US chiropractors have successfully lobbied to have manipulation be illegal if used by all other professions, e.g.: physical therapy. In other words, if a PT performs manipulation a chiro can arrange to have their liscence revoked. This is way too much power in the hands of one group that is quack-based to begin with, but legislators in the US have been slow to rectify the problem.

4. Intense self-promotion: Values are instilled into students that are considered to be unethical by other healthcare practitioners. For example, much time is spent in school and in continuing ed. to learn how to build patient volume and a flourishing business. These are tactics generally taught in sales promotion schools, not health professions. Students are taught to memorize scripts that have been carefully worded to prey on patients' dark imaginings, and persuade them to place their entire health future in the hands of the chiro. Patients are encouraged to bring in their friends and families, and kickback systems are in place where the patient (who is called a "practice member" in chiro circles) will recieve special deals, a free treatment every ten treatments or similar sales incentives. Patients are groomed to become lifelong patients, attending for chiropractic "adjustments" for the rest of their lives, to free up their "innate intelligence", prevent the awful "subluxations"(which only a chiro can see) from impairing their health.

5. Opportunity for quackery to flourish: Once launched out into the world with this dubious set of values, no critical thinking skills, poor appreciation for science, and having access to the vulnerability of patients, the chiro mentality is to sell sell sell, anything and everything, whatever they can dream up, with elaborately devised claims of worth and efficacy but no proof. Q-ray bracelets are one such scam. The forum linked to for chiro assistants has a whole section devoted to such scams.

I think there are individual chiropractors out there and maybe the odd school that is better than the norm, who try to employ actual judgement in their patient care, and don't try to take advantage of people. But this situation is where chiropractic comes from. Has nothing to do, really, with whether manipulation is a valid tool or not.

Diane

[fyslee]

Thank you Diane, for such a nice summary. With your permission, I have posted it on my blog:

http://quackfiles.blogspot.com/

[bernard]

Thanks Diane, nice explanations,

Thanks Paul, nice web sites!

Guest,

I'm not against any manipulative technique. I'm against those which are unnecessary and as stated, these which are based on false theories. I'm not using manipulations because I have other ways to walk around.

[fapt]

Thanks Diane, nice explanations,

Thanks Paul, nice web sites!

Guest,

I'm not against any manipulative technique. I'm against those which are unnecessary and as stated, these which are based on false theories. I'm not using manipulations because I have other ways to walk around.

hmmmm :)
I like manipulation. This is a approach to reduce spine pain but it is bettern than placebo ES.
And i want to use a technique that is based on scitific or evidenced based, not a experience.

[bernard]

Lin,

There is almost three ways to get over an obstacle;

1/ to smash it.
2/ to jump it.
3/ to get around it.

I'm in the third case and you in the first. That's all!

[fapt]

Lin,

There is almost three ways to get over an obstacle;

1/ to smash it.
2/ to jump it.
3/ to get around it.

I'm in the third case and you in the first. That's all!

I don't understand? Bernard... :oops:

[bernard]

Lin,

I was a bit joking there.

If you encounter a problem in the life you have three ways to resolve it =>

The force but it may cost to you if you are weak!
The escape but it may never resolve the problem.
The ruse but you have to learn and understand the problem.

Moving a spinal joint is quite the same, you can use the force to put it back at its place?
You can relax the muscles which are are responsible of the displacement.
And you can ask the brain to do the job for you!

[fapt]

Yes...
I think i got it....
I don't know it is jok (May be English is too bad, don't understand another meaning)

[nari]

Well, I have logged onto this thread and have read it with interest.

In Australia, chiropractors are widely established, and almost as many as PTs in private practice. Australian universities train chiros, and their course is similar to PTs re anatomy and physiology; the US trained are fewer now. Here they are taught electrotherapy, exercise prescriptions, massage, mobilisations adn soft tissue work as well as manips.
The public is confused about chiros and physios, and a large proportion believe you go to a chiro for the spine and a physio for limbs.

Many GPs refer to chiros as well as PTs, and the APA is philosophical about the whole thing: may the best man/woman win. Many younger PTs are very open-minded about chiros; older ones are cynical.
They are not permitted officially in hospitals but do attend their own patients in hospital, occasionally, in perinatal wards. Nobody seems to object greatly.

We have very few osteopaths, which is a pity, as physiotherapy has borrowed from osteopathy in the past. Quite a few physios would like to see physiotherapy and chiropractic join forces and share information, but the APA does not approve.

Personally, I have known a couple of chiros and they are ethical, honest and will not do anything that a patient does not want, eg manip against their wishes.
So the situation in Australia seems better than in other countries. It just is not an important issue; the APA does ask its members not to criticise, or demean chiros in print or verbally. However it draws the line strongly against open communication at committee level with them, although the chiros have requested such opportunities.

Nari