stuart

Rather, if they

We don't think that, you uninformed fuckhead.

rich

From: john@RM_THISromdas.HIP.berkeley.edu (John Badanes)
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative
Subject: Re: CHIROPRACTIC DEGREE vs. MEDICAL DEGREE
Date: 17 Jan 1998 22:29:47 GMT

+ One day on MHA:
+ MY FAMILY PHYSICIAN SAYS THAT CHIROPRACTIC SCHOOL IS A JOKE
+ AND THAT THOSE "QUACKS" HAVE NO BUSINESS IN THE HEALTH PROFESSION.

One of my admonitions in SOME GUIDELINES ON CHOOSING A GOOD
CHIROPRACTOR was to avoid one who in any way competitively suggests
that `chiropractic' is better than medicine. It appears I should
have said, "greater than or equal to" so as to include those who
would argue the equivalence of a DC and MD as though they were
both merely flavors of ice cream with essentially the same
ingredients. While the impact of picking chocolate over vanilla
on any given day is clearly harmless, I suggest that treating
your chiropractor as an entry level physician when you have a
complaint is a much more serious choice, and IMPO, would be
inappropriate, since chiropractors are not qualified to be primary
care providers.

Please be clear. I'm not saying that certain procedures that may
be done in some chiropractic offices are not occasionally useful
for some musculoskeletal conditions. Nor am I saying that there
aren't some chiropractors who are extremely bright, articulate,
accomplished, and/or very talented. There are exceptions in EVERY
profession. I am saying that, among other things, the training
of chiropractors is inadequate to the task of diagnosing and
treating most conditions for which people go to the doctor, and
rare conditions which (rarely) underlie patients' entering
complaints, but nonetheless do occur. Most chiropractors should
not even be considered competent musculoskeletal doctors or back
specialists since almost all their `clinical' training, including
diagnosis and management, is dedicated to "finding and fixing
the [Chiropractic] Subluxation," which I have said before
constitutes a delusional medicine.

I am writing this in response to a recent post which lists the
basic and medical science courses that must be completed by
chiropractors presented side-by-side some of the academic
requirements of MDs. The suggestion, of course, is that because
chiropractors have a similar education to MDs, they can be
considered to be medically competent practitioners. While I
certainly can understand the motivation of a given chiropractor
or the profession promoting this pseudo-equivalent medical
simulacrum by calling each other "Doctor," wearing white coats
in school, and publishing these `comparisons' and claims, I
wouldn't confuse this imagery with the enthusiasm of patients
who "REALLY like their chiropractor," are sure that, "It works,"
or who "know lots of people who have benefited," when choosing
a primary physician. But MOST of all, I wouldn't cite chiropractic
education as a justification for my chiropractic proclivity and
pyschoaesthetic.

You see, the chiropractic profession is fundamentally conflicted
about education. On the one hand, they come from, and often
_prefer_ to be identified with a `Healer' tradition. On the other,
they want to participate in the health care and insurance industry,
and so are forced to rationalize their therapy in the eyes of
the scientific community and account for their diagnoses and
treatments in medical terms. And so, chiropractic's relationship
to the medical model, like any educational requirement your
heart's not-in, is handled poorly, is unsupported, often resented,
and most frequently `put-up-with' by those students who have no
real intent of ever applying the material professionally. ("Adjust
the spine..and all is fine.") Many chiropractors, in fact, are
anti-intellectual, believing that being educated gets-in-the-way
of healing.

This schizoid attitude toward the western heteropathic tradition
crystallizes in the chiropractic students' clinic experience,
which generally starts somewhere between midway and two-thirds-way
through their `academic' curriculum. In the clinic, they must
reconcile the basic and clinical sciences with their chiropractic
philosophy and methodologies. It is, as I've mentioned before,
a conflict between whether there really IS such a thing as
pathology as defined by anatomic and physiologic abnormalities
on the one hand, and a Conceptual Pathology (The Chiropractic
Subluxation) based on the need for the chiropractor to sell
themselves as The Solution to this "Pseudo-Problem," on the other.
In other words, "tissue, becomes an issue." Notably, it was B.J.
Palmer (the son of D.D., the `father' of The Chiropractic), who
denied the existence of the cranial nerves (anatomy) because they
didn't fit-in with his Subluxation Paradigm (Delusional Pathology).
This kind of denial underlies chiropractic `education' and practice
today. So-much for chiropractic anatomy and neurology :-|

While I don't think you can get any deeper than fundamental
differences (by definition), the posted comparison-list leaves
out several important facts pertinent to evaluating its implied
assertion, which is that you can rely on a chiropractor for
diagnosis and treatment of things medical (from glaucoma to neck
pain), since chiros, like MDs, have the same course-work in basic
and clinical sciences. Leaving aside the naive assumption that
the title of a course with the number of units applied to it
indicates _anything_ about the organizational content of the
curriculum (how the task of training an MD and DC is allocated)
or the quality of the course-work, let me say a few things about
what's NOT on the list.

1) Compared to getting into medical school, matriculating to
chiropractic school is a breeze. Only two years of undergraduate
pre-requisites are needed with passing grades in the required
courses. Many chiropractors have taken their basic science
pre-reqs at schools that offer special 6-weekend courses in
each. There is no equivalent in `chiropractic' of the MCAT (Medical
College Admissions Test), which considered alone is not a good
predictor of what KIND of doctor you will be, but IS an indicator
of a certain level of intellectual function (disturbingly absent
in the chiropractic profession). I was accepted to a `good'
chiropractic school with only a phone call since I already met
the requirements and had the tuition money. I was the one to
suggest that they actually meet me personally (like an interview)
to make sure I wasn't a mass-murderer.

A person's character and especially their intellectual interests
and motivation are not carefully considered in the application
process. Chiropractic schools are essentially trade schools,
tuition dependent, and can not afford to be picky about `choosing'
who's admitted. And _because_ the schools require the tuition to
remain `open,' they also can't afford to LOSE anyone, who, even
at a chiropractic school, is demonstrably stupid, incompetent,
and/or dishonest. I think the quality of the entering student
has some bearing on the ultimate product. I didn't see anything
about this on the comparison list.

2) The faculty at chiropractic schools generally do not have real
expertise in the areas they teach. Quite often, they are DCs who
have done their best to put together a course in pathology or
diagnosis, but have no experience (as a medical doctor) beyond
the textbooks they used and the DCs who taught them. Basic
sciences: My biochemistry and physics teacher maintained that
you weighed less when you picked one foot off the ground and that
there was no gravity on the moon. Microbiology: When asked about
the size of a virus, the professor maintained it was "very
small," but wasn't quite sure if it was bigger than an atom, or
not. A fungus was defined as the `green stuff' that appears on
cheese left too long in the refrigerator. Clinical sciences: The
OBGYN course is currently taught by a DC who believes that
new-borns need to be Adjusted to treat the neck trauma incurred
at birth. I didn't see anything about this on the list when
comparing the 'units' of basic and clinical sciences.

3) Being at clinic is like having a free ticket to "Ripley's,
Believe It or Not." The atrocities that go on daily in the name
of `The Chiropractic' are too many to enumerate: using non-medically
diagnostic x-rays to locate the (conceptual) Chiropractic
Subluxation; "Adjusting" the first cervical vertebra on a
patient who has fainted (as an emergency measure); faculty DCs,
who when asked to confirm an arrhythmia on a patient, telling a
student not to worry about it (since the instructor has no idea
what to listen for) and that `Thuh' Adjustment will take care of
The Problem; and on.. and on. This kind of data is conspicuously
absent from the comparison list.

Chiropractic outpatient clinics, where the so-called `clinical'
training takes place are not affiliated with any hospital. Students
do NOT see the patients they've only read about, so that their
clinical judgement and opinion about a rash, a bump, or even a
pain is almost worthless. The faculty DCs are generally Adherents
of a particular Chiropractic Technique and so frequently only
know a portion of their already narrow chiropractic approach.
For example, a teacher who practices NUCCA Technique only analyzes
and treats `malpositions' of the first cervical vertebra. Any
patient complaint is presumed to be a misalignment of the first
cervical vertebra and is "corrected" with what's called a
'Triceps-Pull,' a robotically tense, slow and convoluted maneuver
so byzantine in concept and application that, well, you'd have
to "See it, to Believe it!" If a student spends their entire
clinic life "mastering" such an irrelevant medicine, how does
this speak to the issue of training for primary care, or even a
back specialist? Where is this information represented on the
comparison list?

Finally, I am not aware of any required clinical internship or
residency (as with MDs) for chiropractors above and beyond their
relatively minor clinic exposure and the irrelevant clinical
antics to which I referred earlier. Leaving out this three to
five years training that most MDs undertake AFTER graduating four
years of medical school is perhaps the most grotesque, but no
less naive, misrepresentation of the lists comparing MD and DC
medical educations. But there's a qualitative subtlety which
may be missed if we only focus on this obvious quantitative
difference. This relates to the relationship of the chiropractor
and the MD _to_ the course-work that's listed.

Remember, that the Vitalism that informs much of Chiropraxis both
historically and hysterically, is virtually unrelated to scientific
medicine. Hence, the medical and science courses that ARE listed
for chiropractors represent little more than a theatrical prop,
like the white jacket and stethoscope needed to "Play a doctor
in real (insurance-reimbursable) life." Medical education, OTOH,
represents the fundamental and basic underpinning of the diagnostic
and therapeutic strategies and skills MDs will develop and apply
throughout their practice career. Chiropractic students *STILL*
argue about why they have to take all this "medical stuff" knowing
very well how easy it is to trade-in the complexities of
biochemistry, nerve trespass, and patient management for the more
lucrative world of Body Chemistry, Nerve Interference, and Practice
Management once they graduate.

How could ANY of this be apparent by merely comparing the
course-lists posted by Chiropractor White? An MD `starts-in'
with his patient (see above) saying, "Chiropractic education is
a joke," and Chiropractor White provides the punch-line with his
empty MD/DC curricular "parity" (parody). Wild, huh? ;')

From The Chiropractic Byzantium. John Badanes [TEO.]

------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------

The best defense to logic is ignorance.

rich

Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative
Subject: Re: CHIROPRACTIC DEGREE vs. MEDICAL DEGREE
Date: 17 Jan 1998 22:29:47 GMT

+ One day on MHA:
+ MY FAMILY PHYSICIAN SAYS THAT CHIROPRACTIC SCHOOL IS A JOKE
+ AND THAT THOSE "QUACKS" HAVE NO BUSINESS IN THE HEALTH PROFESSION.

One of my admonitions in SOME GUIDELINES ON CHOOSING A GOOD
CHIROPRACTOR was to avoid one who in any way competitively suggests
that `chiropractic' is better than medicine. It appears I should
have said, "greater than or equal to" so as to include those who
would argue the equivalence of a DC and MD as though they were
both merely flavors of ice cream with essentially the same
ingredients. While the impact of picking chocolate over vanilla
on any given day is clearly harmless, I suggest that treating
your chiropractor as an entry level physician when you have a
complaint is a much more serious choice, and IMPO, would be
inappropriate, since chiropractors are not qualified to be primary
care providers.

Please be clear. I'm not saying that certain procedures that may
be done in some chiropractic offices are not occasionally useful
for some musculoskeletal conditions. Nor am I saying that there
aren't some chiropractors who are extremely bright, articulate,
accomplished, and/or very talented. There are exceptions in EVERY
profession. I am saying that, among other things, the training
of chiropractors is inadequate to the task of diagnosing and
treating most conditions for which people go to the doctor, and
rare conditions which (rarely) underlie patients' entering
complaints, but nonetheless do occur. Most chiropractors should
not even be considered competent musculoskeletal doctors or back
specialists since almost all their `clinical' training, including
diagnosis and management, is dedicated to "finding and fixing
the [Chiropractic] Subluxation," which I have said before
constitutes a delusional medicine.

I am writing this in response to a recent post which lists the
basic and medical science courses that must be completed by
chiropractors presented side-by-side some of the academic
requirements of MDs. The suggestion, of course, is that because
chiropractors have a similar education to MDs, they can be
considered to be medically competent practitioners. While I
certainly can understand the motivation of a given chiropractor
or the profession promoting this pseudo-equivalent medical
simulacrum by calling each other "Doctor," wearing white coats
in school, and publishing these `comparisons' and claims, I
wouldn't confuse this imagery with the enthusiasm of patients
who "REALLY like their chiropractor," are sure that, "It works,"
or who "know lots of people who have benefited," when choosing
a primary physician. But MOST of all, I wouldn't cite chiropractic
education as a justification for my chiropractic proclivity and
pyschoaesthetic.

You see, the chiropractic profession is fundamentally conflicted
about education. On the one hand, they come from, and often
_prefer_ to be identified with a `Healer' tradition. On the other,
they want to participate in the health care and insurance industry,
and so are forced to rationalize their therapy in the eyes of
the scientific community and account for their diagnoses and
treatments in medical terms. And so, chiropractic's relationship
to the medical model, like any educational requirement your
heart's not-in, is handled poorly, is unsupported, often resented,
and most frequently `put-up-with' by those students who have no
real intent of ever applying the material professionally. ("Adjust
the spine..and all is fine.") Many chiropractors, in fact, are
anti-intellectual, believing that being educated gets-in-the-way
of healing.

This schizoid attitude toward the western heteropathic tradition
crystallizes in the chiropractic students' clinic experience,
which generally starts somewhere between midway and two-thirds-way
through their `academic' curriculum. In the clinic, they must
reconcile the basic and clinical sciences with their chiropractic
philosophy and methodologies. It is, as I've mentioned before,
a conflict between whether there really IS such a thing as
pathology as defined by anatomic and physiologic abnormalities
on the one hand, and a Conceptual Pathology (The Chiropractic
Subluxation) based on the need for the chiropractor to sell
themselves as The Solution to this "Pseudo-Problem," on the other.
In other words, "tissue, becomes an issue." Notably, it was B.J.
Palmer (the son of D.D., the `father' of The Chiropractic), who
denied the existence of the cranial nerves (anatomy) because they
didn't fit-in with his Subluxation Paradigm (Delusional Pathology).
This kind of denial underlies chiropractic `education' and practice
today. So-much for chiropractic anatomy and neurology :-|

While I don't think you can get any deeper than fundamental
differences (by definition), the posted comparison-list leaves
out several important facts pertinent to evaluating its implied
assertion, which is that you can rely on a chiropractor for
diagnosis and treatment of things medical (from glaucoma to neck
pain), since chiros, like MDs, have the same course-work in basic
and clinical sciences. Leaving aside the naive assumption that
the title of a course with the number of units applied to it
indicates _anything_ about the organizational content of the
curriculum (how the task of training an MD and DC is allocated)
or the quality of the course-work, let me say a few things about
what's NOT on the list.

1) Compared to getting into medical school, matriculating to
chiropractic school is a breeze. Only two years of undergraduate
pre-requisites are needed with passing grades in the required
courses. Many chiropractors have taken their basic science
pre-reqs at schools that offer special 6-weekend courses in
each. There is no equivalent in `chiropractic' of the MCAT (Medical
College Admissions Test), which considered alone is not a good
predictor of what KIND of doctor you will be, but IS an indicator
of a certain level of intellectual function (disturbingly absent
in the chiropractic profession). I was accepted to a `good'
chiropractic school with only a phone call since I already met
the requirements and had the tuition money. I was the one to
suggest that they actually meet me personally (like an interview)
to make sure I wasn't a mass-murderer.

A person's character and especially their intellectual interests
and motivation are not carefully considered in the application
process. Chiropractic schools are essentially trade schools,
tuition dependent, and can not afford to be picky about `choosing'
who's admitted. And _because_ the schools require the tuition to
remain `open,' they also can't afford to LOSE anyone, who, even
at a chiropractic school, is demonstrably stupid, incompetent,
and/or dishonest. I think the quality of the entering student
has some bearing on the ultimate product. I didn't see anything
about this on the comparison list.

2) The faculty at chiropractic schools generally do not have real
expertise in the areas they teach. Quite often, they are DCs who
have done their best to put together a course in pathology or
diagnosis, but have no experience (as a medical doctor) beyond
the textbooks they used and the DCs who taught them. Basic
sciences: My biochemistry and physics teacher maintained that
you weighed less when you picked one foot off the ground and that
there was no gravity on the moon. Microbiology: When asked about
the size of a virus, the professor maintained it was "very
small," but wasn't quite sure if it was bigger than an atom, or
not. A fungus was defined as the `green stuff' that appears on
cheese left too long in the refrigerator. Clinical sciences: The
OBGYN course is currently taught by a DC who believes that
new-borns need to be Adjusted to treat the neck trauma incurred
at birth. I didn't see anything about this on the list when
comparing the 'units' of basic and clinical sciences.

3) Being at clinic is like having a free ticket to "Ripley's,
Believe It or Not." The atrocities that go on daily in the name
of `The Chiropractic' are too many to enumerate: using non-medically
diagnostic x-rays to locate the (conceptual) Chiropractic
Subluxation; "Adjusting" the first cervical vertebra on a
patient who has fainted (as an emergency measure); faculty DCs,
who when asked to confirm an arrhythmia on a patient, telling a
student not to worry about it (since the instructor has no idea
what to listen for) and that `Thuh' Adjustment will take care of
The Problem; and on.. and on. This kind of data is conspicuously
absent from the comparison list.

Chiropractic outpatient clinics, where the so-called `clinical'
training takes place are not affiliated with any hospital. Students
do NOT see the patients they've only read about, so that their
clinical judgement and opinion about a rash, a bump, or even a
pain is almost worthless. The faculty DCs are generally Adherents
of a particular Chiropractic Technique and so frequently only
know a portion of their already narrow chiropractic approach.
For example, a teacher who practices NUCCA Technique only analyzes
and treats `malpositions' of the first cervical vertebra. Any
patient complaint is presumed to be a misalignment of the first
cervical vertebra and is "corrected" with what's called a
'Triceps-Pull,' a robotically tense, slow and convoluted maneuver
so byzantine in concept and application that, well, you'd have
to "See it, to Believe it!" If a student spends their entire
clinic life "mastering" such an irrelevant medicine, how does
this speak to the issue of training for primary care, or even a
back specialist? Where is this information represented on the
comparison list?

Finally, I am not aware of any required clinical internship or
residency (as with MDs) for chiropractors above and beyond their
relatively minor clinic exposure and the irrelevant clinical
antics to which I referred earlier. Leaving out this three to
five years training that most MDs undertake AFTER graduating four
years of medical school is perhaps the most grotesque, but no
less naive, misrepresentation of the lists comparing MD and DC
medical educations. But there's a qualitative subtlety which
may be missed if we only focus on this obvious quantitative
difference. This relates to the relationship of the chiropractor
and the MD _to_ the course-work that's listed.

Remember, that the Vitalism that informs much of Chiropraxis both
historically and hysterically, is virtually unrelated to scientific
medicine. Hence, the medical and science courses that ARE listed
for chiropractors represent little more than a theatrical prop,
like the white jacket and stethoscope needed to "Play a doctor
in real (insurance-reimbursable) life." Medical education, OTOH,
represents the fundamental and basic underpinning of the diagnostic
and therapeutic strategies and skills MDs will develop and apply
throughout their practice career. Chiropractic students *STILL*
argue about why they have to take all this "medical stuff" knowing
very well how easy it is to trade-in the complexities of
biochemistry, nerve trespass, and patient management for the more
lucrative world of Body Chemistry, Nerve Interference, and Practice
Management once they graduate.

How could ANY of this be apparent by merely comparing the
course-lists posted by Chiropractor White? An MD `starts-in'
with his patient (see above) saying, "Chiropractic education is
a joke," and Chiropractor White provides the punch-line with his
empty MD/DC curricular "parity" (parody). Wild, huh? ;')

From The Chiropractic Byzantium. John Badanes [TEO.]


------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------

The best defense to logic is ignorance.

jeff

Way to show intellectual dishonesty by selective quoting. Really adds honor
to chiropractors and to your position here.

Jeff

david

Perhaps you might "hangout" with a Chiro, and find out for yourself what all
the hubbub is about.

rich

In Stu's case it is his psychopathic lying that is glaring. Aloha, Rich

------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------

The best defense to logic is ignorance.

mch

You know, there are quite a few of us who receive chiropractic care and
think very highly of the profession. That care has helped those of us who
have been in pain for years. I only recently started seeing a chiropractor
after spending over 30 years with lower back pain. The man took on the
challenge and I can honestly say that the level of pain has been reduced.
While I am not completely pain free it sure beats the alternative - surgery.

I subscribed to this news group in hopes of learning more about
chiropractic. But I have discovered that the people who tend to follow this
group have nothing to say but negative comments. Not only on chiropractic
care but ALL alternative health care. Shame. It would have been nice to
read some positive threads. And ones that would help us all understand what
alternative health care can do for us. The negative threads are almost as
bad as the actual practice of medicine. At least I trust my Chiropractor.
Can't say the same for most of the MDs I've had throughout my life.

Does anyone have anything positive to say?

howard mccollister

Sci.med has several real doctors on it, so the discussions tend toward
allopathic medicine. You won't find any meaningful discussions about
chiropractic here, nor much useful information about any other alternative
health care nostrums. That's not what this group is about these days.

I would suggest sci.med.alternative, or misc.health.alternative. Or I
suspect there are a number of chiropractic-oriented web forums outside of
Usenet. I'd suggest you try a google search on the alternative health care
areas you're interested in. Usenet is pretty wild, and a nice, tame,
moderated forum on Yahoo or some similar service should meet your
chiropractic informational needs far better than sci.med.

HMc

david

It works for me, and a few hundred that I have seen.

david

Not to worry, the day will come when you or someone you care about will be
helped by a Chiropractor. You will not come here and admit it though because
that is the kind of person that you are.