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Looking for Real Answers on PARCA

Dear Editor:

While the PARCA bill sounds very encouraging and a good step in the right direction, Congressman Norwood seemed very reluctant to directly address questions regarding its effect on our profession.

In fact, in a recent radio interview on an Atlanta station, he also avoided stating anything that PARCA (or he) would do for chiropractic.

The ACA supports the bill, and I am speaking about it favorably in public. However, it would be much easier to support and to encourage others to do the same if any of those in Congress who are behind it would give a straight answer on how the bill would benefit our patients with regard to their chiropractic care.

Politics is a very elusive forum. Unfortunately, health care is becoming just as bad. Let's clear away the mud and get some real answers on chiropractic.

David M. Klayman, DC
Mahwah, New Jersey

"Quality Builds the Profession ..."

Regarding Dr. Pedigo's article "We Need a National PR Campaign ... It's Coming, Thanks to ACA & ICA" in the November 17, 1997 issue of DC, let me suggest an alternative plan.

We need a national campaign to educate the chiropractic profession regarding the needs of the patient. I agree with Dr. Pedigo's point, however, that the campaign must start in our own chiropractic colleges.

It's quite simple, actually. It's called quality care: care that meets or exceeds the needs and expectations of the patient. It is not care based on quantity, which is "the new patient game."

Quality builds the profession. It builds and maintains the practice, the bank account, the reputation and the public acceptance of chiropractic. It creates the demand for chiropractic care and demand always outperforms salesmanship ... and PR campaigns of the kind once again being contemplated.

The public already has an impression of chiropractic. Ask them and they will tell you. Their answers need to be dealt with.

Steven J. Parkin, DC
Chesterfield, Missouri
chirosjp-primary.net

Remembering Dr. Parker

Dear Editor:

In the chiropractic profession, there have been many doctors who have contributed to the profession in a constructive way. Without question, Dr. James Parker has affected constructively the lives of more chiropractors than any other in the history of chiropractic.

I graduated in 1938, and was in Dr. Parker's second seminar class. Not only did he contribute to the financial well-being of chiropractors and their families, he also gave a higher self-worth to each doctor that attended his seminars. Dr. Parker was a giant among chiropractors and made a lasting impression on the growth of the chiropractic profession.

William Harris, DC
Alpharetta, Georgia

The Benefit of Experience

Dear Editor:

An article in your October 6, 1997 issue entitled "Do We Need to Re-test or Re-educate the Experienced Doctor of Chiropractic?" caught my eye. The article raised a number of interesting issues, but there were also some issues it did not raise.

For instance, what is the benefit of experience? In what ways is an experienced doctor better than a new graduate? Are there some doctors who see, to grow and improve with experience while others do not? Is there a way to incorporate the positive aspects of experience into the education of chiropractic students?

With the ascendancy of managed care, an adjustment is an adjustment is an adjustment. (Pardon me; I meant that a 98940 is a 98940 is a 98940.) The treatment I render a patient today has no greater value than the treatments I gave patients sixteen years ago when I was first in practice.

Sorry, but that just ain't so.

Ronald Levine, DC
New York, New York

Greater Communication through State Associations

Dear Editor:

I wanted you to know that some of the forms you mailed regarding the PARCA bill did not get sent out. I received two issues of DC, one for myself and one for my colleague. Only one issue had the form. Knowing the post office, I suspect I was not alone.

It seems to me that the dissemination of this important form could also have been done via a fax broadcast at a "cellular" or state level to each doctor through the state associations, if they were prepared -- which they are not.

Here are the three steps every state association needs to take to develop a "properly communicating nervous system":

Adopt a new communication paradigm. Lose the old idea of the pyramid. Look at communication as a human body, with a brain and a nervous system going to each doctor.

Appoint a person to call every doctor in the state. Get a fax number for each. I find that about 75% of our doctors now have a fax machine.

Select a fax broadcast service. They will broadcast a message to all doctors in the state in any area code for around five cents each -- peanuts, really.

I believe the implications for our professional ability and agility speak for themselves. We are on the move and we need to press on vigorously!

Paul Tuthill, DC
Grand Rapids, Michigan