We Have a Shortage!
After a very successful weekend, where prospective students and their families from all over the globe showed up at Life University in Georgia for a test drive, it became apparent to me that we had a shocking problem:
We don’t have enough chiropractors.
We are experiencing a global shortage.
With over 9 million medical doctors worldwide and less than 100,000 chiropractors, the number of chiropractors necessary to care for the 8 billion people on Earth is alarmingly low. Considering that medical errors rank as the number 1 or number 3 cause of death in the United States, do we really need more of them? Both the well-respected British Medical Journal and Johns Hopkins Medical School agree that something needs to be done, but adding more medical doctors cannot be the answer.
That would be like trying to put out a house fire with gasoline.
Of the 100,000 Doctors of Chiropractic worldwide, the majority of them practice inside the paradigm of the pathogenic model. That is the naming and treating of a disease or condition. While those conditions are vastly limited to uncomplicated musculoskeletal conditions (read neck and back pain) chiropractors never were “back doctors”. Simply because our main access point is the spine, we have been called back doctors in today’s culture. Yet if a doctor gives you an injection would you call that person a “skin doctor”? Of course not. Many of these chiropractors utilize things other than pharmaceutical drugs, surgery, or chemotherapy of course, like physiological therapeutics, supplements, light and or sound therapy, as well as nutrition, diet, and exercise counseling. In several states, chiropractors are allowed to inject fluids into the body. I am guessing a vast minority practice within the Chiropractic model. That is what Bruce Lipton, PhD calls the “Salutogenic Model”. Coined in 1979, it is the study of the origins of health and focuses on factors that support human health and well-being, rather than on factors that cause disease (pathogenesis).
As chiropractors, we are woefully short-staffed in this arena. To be perfectly honest, other practitioners can and do practice from our model like Naturopathic doctors, acupuncturists, etc., but the basis of the Chiropractic Model has been rooted in the restoration and maintenance of health since its inception over 129 years ago.
The biggest difference between the salutogenic or vitalistic model and the pathogenic or mechanistic model of healthcare is like a classic Venn diagram:
While mechanistic models are designed to cause an effect on physiology (forcing the body’s systems to conform within a range of parameters,) vitalistic models are effecting a cause (greater life expression or health). Vitalism implies that an inherent, inborn, or innate wisdom exists in the living body and relies on this organizational intelligence or Nature to repair and maintain tissues and systems.
The Pathogenic (medical model) is concerned with an ever-expanding list of ailments, syndromes, and diseases. This is evidenced by the current International Classification of Diseases, (ICD-11) which has added 85,000 new entries since the publishing of its predecessor, ICD-10 in 2013. Chiropractic is concerned with only one situation: nerve interference or tone. While this is an oversimplification of the issues the world faces today, it is reasonable that chronic diseases would be astronomically reduced if the “health” care systems of the world like the CDC, NIH, WHO, etc, focused on clean water, shelter, non-processed food, reduction of toxic load, natural living principles, and education from the perspective of a true salutogenic model. (Spoiler alert: the money is in sickness, disease, and poverty.)
This is the reason more chiropractors are needed.
Today’s culture and its people are waking up to the truth that drugs and medicine are a last resort when all other natural methods have been exhausted. They are seeking healthcare practitioners outside of the drug company beholden physicians. It will require personal responsibility and accountability. This is why we founded LifeForce Group whose motto is “We will not stop until everyone on the planet has access to chiropractic care and a chiropractic education if they so choose.”
This is why I created Design Your Life, the week-long Mission/Retreat/Experience in Mexico. It was created to nurture the Power within each of us to help our fellow inhabitants fully express their inherent abilities to heal. Our next trip is slated for the third week of June and based on the success of the previous three trips, it will sell out quickly. I have limited it to 20 participants to ensure our “product” is achieved.
There are two things I am sure that the world needs more of: Love and Chiropractors. Let’s see if we can do both.
Dr. Danny.