You might be doing a disservice to your patient
If you, as a doctor, only treat subluxation and do not address the cause of that subluxation you are doing a disservice to your patient and we will never become the primary health profession we are capable of becoming in our country. Now, I know I am going to ruffle some feathers with that remark, but doesn’t your patient deserve better? How about your family? How about your colleagues?
If you had an oil leak in your car and your mechanic kept on replenishing the oil and told you to come back three times per week, without fixing the cause for the leak, would you not look for another mechanic? Why not another chiropractor?
Isn’t it ironic that we state that the cause of all disease comes from subluxation (which, by the way, I also agree with) but, yet, we do not treat the root cause of the subluxation to rid our body of the disease! Could your imagine the myriad health conditions we could successfully treat if we treated the cause of subluxation? If we could develop this type of purpose and program for our profession, we would no longer need practice management programs to build our practice. Patients would be lining up and down the street to see us. The overall health of our nation would dramatically improve, reducing health care costs and human suffering beyond belief.
If we do not start addressing the cause of subluxation, then someone else will and it will be at the expense of our profession, as we lose another patient and all the referrals of this patient to a nutritionist, acupuncturist, herbalist, massage therapist, physical therapist/trainer, etc.
Now, I know that a lost of doctors out there just want to deal with subluxations because, after all, the primary job of a chiropractor is to remove subluxation. But, is it? Even our founder D.D. Palmer said it best in The Science, Art and Philosophy of Chiropractic, when he stated, “The determining causes of all disease are traumatism (physical), poison (chemical) and autosuggestion (mental/emotional).” So why are we just dealing with subluxation?
Or to quote Thomas Edison, “The Doctor of the Future will give no medication, but will interest his patient in diet, the care of the human frame and the cause and prevention of disease.” Do we not want to be “Doctors of the Future”, improving the health of our nation?
Better yet, look at the Triune of Health, which states that all disease either comes from a chemical, physical, or mental (emotional) cause or a combination of the aforementioned.
So the choice is ours as a profession. Are we going to focus on the subluxation or include the cause of the subluxation and the necessary treatment protocol as well? Or should we allow these other disciplines to chip away at our profession by treating the very cause of what we treat?
I say that we develop a change in attitude, a refinement of our philosophy, embrace the cause of subluxation and develop treatment protocols within our profession to treat the cause of subluxation. Since the cause of subluxation can be:
- Chemical, we should develop individualized nutritional programs to help our patients with their dietary needs and supplements.
- Physical, we should institute additional treatment and exercise programs that will increase strength, stability, flexibility, balance and stamina to the musculoskeletal system and devise an individual exercise program addressing the specific physical needs of that patient.
- Mental/Emotional, we should create educational programs that teach our patients the effects of stress on their bodies and what they can do to avoid them.
Creating a protocol to treat the cause of subluxation will be an ongoing segment and aim in this column where we explore the many protocols that address the chemical, physical and mental/emotional aspects of the cause of subluxation.
For more information on Dr. Cima and the many books he has written, you may visit his website at www.cimasystem.com.