Our intentions toward others can act as powerful healing agents, even when conventional care has failed. It's not necessary to be "a doctor" to help someone get well. What is essential are feelings of concern and the willingness to act on those feelings. Here are a few examples of that power and why in this day and age, your ability to help patients may have as much to do with your ability to care as your skill as a DC.
The Power of Intention
When I was 17, I learned firsthand how powerful intention is. I wanted to date, but I was embarrassed by my hands, which were covered with warts. I tried everything to get rid of them, but they just came back. Finally, I had them burned off by a medical doctor. He finished and said, "Steve, I had warts, too." I was shocked.
He said, "Look at my hands; this is where they were burned off. You can see the scars. As a physician, I can't afford to have warts. One day, I decided I wasn't going to have them anymore. I put them out of my mind and they went away.
"You could do the same thing," he suggested. So I did, and surprisingly, they never came back!
A True Story
Intention is powerful. Listening to others, communicating at the deepest levels and acting out of real concern is life changing. I know; I've helped nearly 20,000 people as a chiropractor in the past three decades. However, I had a patient with severe back pain who wasn't improving under my care. You'd think if a chiropractor could help something, it would be lower back pain. I wasn't getting anywhere and I'd tried everything: different adjustments, more examinations, more X-rays and consults with other doctors.
His pain was severe, and I was uncertain why he wasn't responding at all. Finally, I sat him down and said, "John, we're not getting anywhere. We're going to have to do something different.
"You need an MRI," I explained. "It's a diagnostic test to see what's wrong."
John came back three weeks later and said, "Dr. V, you knew exactly what to do." I said, "What?" He exclaimed, "You knew exactly how to help me."
I asked, "What do you mean? Did you go for the MRI?" He said, "Yes I did, but when they put me in the tube, it aggravated my back. My pain was excruciating. Lying there was terrible, but when they took me out, I was completely healed!" He didn't know it was supposed to be diagnostic and not curative.
I didn't have the heart to tell him an MRI has no therapeutic value. For him, though, the MRI worked like magic to rid him of back pain permanently. Obviously, he had a psychosomatic disorder. Perhaps a caring relationship was all he needed to let go of what, for him, was very real and debilitating pain.
Incurable? Maybe Not
One day an autistic child was brought to me who was totally out of control. I couldn't even let him in the reception area, as he would tear the place up. He couldn't speak and apparently couldn't hear. His mom would drive him to my center strapped in the front seat next to her. She had to strap him in because he would grab her hair while she was driving. He was going through puberty and getting aggressive with his siblings and family.
I explained to his mother, "I'm not sure what I can do will help him." I would run into the van while his mother sat in the reception area enjoying a break from her out-of-control son. I would adjust his neck to relieve pressure on his nervous system while he sat with his back toward me. His mother kept bringing him in again and again, but nothing was changing.
Then one day, the boy was sitting alone in the van, removed from the world, seemingly unable to hear me. I don't know what came over me; I hadn't planned on doing anything different. I stood over him and said in a low, slow voice, "I know you're in there. I know you can hear me. You're about to lose everyone in the world who ever cared about you. You will lose everyone who ever loved you unless you change. You must stop grabbing at your siblings and mom. You must settle down or you'll lose it all." Then I left.
His mom brought him back a week later and said, "He's totally changed for the better. I don't know what you did."
The Heart of Healing
Warts, lower back pain and autism: What do these cases have in common? They weren't responding and there was someone who was concerned and willing to show their heart, that's all. There are people waiting for you to show up "emotionally." Do you see children? Some are bedwetters, some are being bullied; some are struggling with learning disorders. You can help them.
Maybe you have a patient who can't get a job or hold a job, or is having trouble with drugs. Others need your help with alcoholism and relationships. Just listen to them without interrupting. Don't even think, don't analyze, don't play psychologist. I'm not asking you to do that. Perhaps an answer will spring from your heart and you could honor that.
Sometimes all that's necessary is giving someone a hug. That may be welcome and meaningful to that individual.
It's not necessary to be "a doctor" to help people. The whole world is hurting; everyone is struggling in some way. You can pull them in by listening and giving them a heartfelt response. Something you say or do could heal them in a real, but unexpected way.
Every one of us has had cases like this. Patients need chiropractic. They are also quite human and respond readily to a caring relationship. It only takes a moment to listen to them and show concern, but it could mean everything to the lives you touch.
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.
On Feb. 1, 2024, two more legislators – John R. Carter (R-Texas) and Robert “Bob” Good (R-Va.) – co-sponsored the Chiropractic Medicare Coverage Modernization Act of 2023, bringing the co-sponsor total to 155, two more than the total achieved over the entire two-year congressional cycle in which identical legislation last appeared (2021-22).
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.
