Why DCs Need MDs
Dear Editor:
What an interesting Oct. 1 issue – and interestingly contradictory! Above the fold, front page: "Building the DC/MD" Bridge." On page 3 in his Report of Findings, Don Petersen discusses getting labwork and how he left the field blank that asked for the name of his medical doctor. Why? Because, as he states: "I don't have one. (Why should I?)"
Many chiropractors denigrate the medical profession as drug-pushing robots, and yet the first article encourages earning their respect and building an economic practice model by including them as enthusiastic referrers to chiropractic practices. I didn't see the word subluxation used in the article, but it did refer to asymmetry and unlocking spinal segments. Why? If we ask MDs to refer to us so we can take care of their patients' subluxations, it means either nothing to them or something about partial dislocation of spinal segments, which makes no sense to them, either.
As a profession, we have to ask ourselves if we truly wish to be part of the current health care system, which requires good and respectful communication between providers and a coherent common language which facilitates that communication.
Don, why should one have a medical doctor? Because you might need one; either for a problem that can't be managed by chiropractic or to build an economic practice model. Saying that MDs are not necessary, and insisting on using language that confuses the issue of what we do and how it might help our mutual patients, isn't going to get us anywhere.
Cathlynn Groh, DC-APC
Santa Fe, N.M.
Many relevant diagnostic signs are not performed deliberately by the examiner or by the patient at the examiner’s direction. They are observed as the patient reacts to their condition. Fortin’s finger sign, Minor’s sign, and Vanzetti’s sign are three examples of this principle.
Spearheaded by burgeoning scientific and clinical research literature, psychedelics have reached a level of media coverage and popular interest that has not been seen for over half a century. By “psychedelics,” we are referring to the unique class of substances that includes psilocybin (the active compound found in so-called “magic mushrooms”), LSD, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ayahuasca, 5-MeO-DMT, and mescaline – each of which occurs in the natural world (except for LSD, which is a semi-synthetic compound).
While working at the Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M., one of the primary care physicians stated that imaging every patient prior to receiving chiropractic was not medically necessary. It was at that point I reconsidered the need for the imaging of every patient to avoid malpractice.
