Pet Peeves

By John Raymond Baker

"I went to a choirpractor (sic) years ago, he fixed me in one visit. That was old Dr. Smith. He only charged me five dollars a visit and he didn't take any x-rays or any of this fancy stuff. Now he was a good choirpractor (sic)."

We all have pet peeves.

They visit us with silent torment and frustrations every day. At times, we feel like we are the only ones so afflicted. But sometimes when you share them with another doctor, you find a collegiality, a brotherhood in this common aggravation. Sharing them brings us not only a sense of relief that we aren't the only ones, but sometimes there is also humor as well. With this in mind, here are some of mine; perhaps some of these are yours as well.

Supine Please

This one drives me crazy and I have yet to understand it. When I am doing an exam and need to get the patient on the exam table to perform the straight leg raise, I ask the patient to "get on their back." I would say that 95 percent of the people lie down on their stomachs while I am saying "on your back" (my record is saying that five times while they were in the process of getting on the table!). Then I added "face up" to "on your back."

Do We Have to Do That "Neck Popping" Today?

This one gets me crazy. The clinic has the word "chiropractic" prominently displayed in all ads and on the sign. In the report of findings and discussion of the treatment plan, I take a plastic spine and demonstrate what a manipulation is and tell them why I do this, and also tell them that they will be getting this every day and yet, they come up with this question on the second treatment. At that point, you feel like tearing your (or better, their) hair out in frustration.

But I Don't Hurt Anymore, Why Do I Still Need to Come In?

'Nuff said!

Aren't You Going to Give Me Anything for the Pain?

This pet peeve is directed more at the atavistic attitudes of some of my fellow doctors of chiropractic who have felt they should be able to define a rather limited scope of practice for everyone just because they don't want the choice of prescribing anti-inflammatory medications and the like.

And Others ...

I could go on and on about others, but I thought I would end with a few of my most common ones, ones which you might see and wince about with recognition that they are yours as well.

reports from an RN doing a paper review that your care was "not medically necessary"
appellations like "choirpractor," "carepractor," "choirprocology," etc., (and other endearments like "back cracker"
insurance company which pays for 19 visits and arbitrarily picks one date of service in the middle to deny as not being medically necessary
patient who, after singing your praises how you've cured them, decides that you didn't help at all when you ask them to pay their bill
paperwork that requires an in-depth answer, but provides a space the size of a microdot to reply
patients who don't bathe
CHAMPUS not paying for chiropractic
federal workers' compensation guidelines for chiropractic

I know that each of you has probably started thinking of about a dozen of your own. Perhaps we can't fix the problem of pet peeves -- but it sure feels good to get them off your chest!

John Raymond Baker, DC
Beaumont, Texas