let me start by saying I graduated as DC in 99, practice for 3 years, and now i m in medical school doing my internship. So what i will say is from my own experiences. Concern about the high rate of DC drop out, this was an issue during my chiro school. In fact one of the doctor who teach chiropractic philosophy had brought up that stat and we had a debate in class about. It's truth DC has one of the highest default in student loans, i know this for fact because during my study the loan officers came to our school and speak about that issues. As for my own experience, i have 6 friends who graduated sametime. 2 went into real estate, 1 went into IT school, 1 went back to med school like me, and 2 still practice in IL. So i dont know what that mean, but it's a high number for my experience. Concern about Gonstead technique, it's not phasing out as Emanon mention at least in 1999, it's still taught in my school and we still use it as segmental diagnosis. In fact, Gonstead club was a strongest lobbies on my campus and they want to incooperate Gonstead philosophy into our school teaching-include antivaccine message. Our dean had a meeting with them. The big problem with chiropractic as a profession is the diagnosis completely subjective by the dc, because dc use only palpation to make segmental diagnosis and no two dc could came up with same diagnosis. In fact, we had a small group studies on this during my time. We had a group of faculties and students palpated a group of patients, and write down diagnosis. Most of them had complete different diagnosis on the same patients. So what i mean is if a patient has low Hgb, most MD would agree that pt has amenia. They might not agree what cause it but at least the agree with that. Now in my own experience, after i graduated i could not find a paying DC job for 6 months, most places told me they only interested in percentage. That mean i bring in patients and split the fee with them. Some places offered me 12 dollars/hr as fully license DC and that is rare to find. Most of my classmates was in the same situation. I finally found a group practices that would paid me 36T a year a license DC. During that time i went to Wallmart, county fairs, and swap-meet to do spinal screening. And there was two others DC tables in this one swap meet beside me. I was adviced by the owner of the practice that every spinal screening patient should have or need adjustment and my job is to get them to come sign up of package deal of adjustment. I didnt feel rite about. So i quitted and went back to med school. So that is my experience. I jz want to say to Emanon why is it that someone has to be hurt by DC to have an opinion? Dont u think the way u say things sound so defensive? Why is it so wrong to ask chiropractors to set a standard for the profession? How long do we have to wait for our profession to get our act together? Like my Medical Ethics doctor says if not u, who? If not here, where? If not now, When? So please keep the dialogue going and please dont be so defensive it only does our a profession a disservice. Thank U. I hope i didnt offend anyone.

I have absolutely no problem with someone having an opinion about chiropractic. It's when that opinion is obviously biased and based on hearsay and unfounded claims, that I will have a problem with it. Show me where there's a single positive comment about chiropractic or DC's in any of the threads posted by EthanHunter. All he does is bash a profession he apparently has no clue about.

I also have no problem establishing a standard of practice in chiropractic. In fact, the idiots who are anti-vaccination and who claim they can cure blindness with chiropractic are the ones who make good docs look bad. I cringe every time a new patient tells me that their previous DC had them coming in 3x/week for 6 months. It's unethical, and it only hurts people's image of our profession.

I'm sorry your experience with chiropractic was so negative. And just because 1 school had a strong Gonstead club 8 years ago, doesn't mean that it's the prevalent technique. Diversified is still the one being used in most offices and it's still the one being taught at most schools. There are plenty ethical, honest, hard-working DC's that make a good living while helping their patients. I've been in practice for 5 years and I can tell you I am not making 36K a year. Even fresh out of school I wasn't making that little. And you don't have to go to county fairs and Walmart to sit in a booth and get patients. It's degrading and I wish they would stop doing that. If you're good at helping people, they will find you on their own.

Bottom line, if you're good at what you do, you will succeed. Maybe chiropractic wasn't something you were good at. For all you know you'll be a world-famous MD someday.

Originally when i read the thread about a DC girl who graduated and not making end meet n Newport California, i thought it's a very common theme in Chiropractic field. The thing that really get me is when the recuit from my DC school met us, he painted a very rosy pic of the profession. He made it sound like once u graduate, you will find a high pay job or u can go into practice urself. And trust me most of my friend felt for it, we was young and didnt have a truth direction while in College. After the the first year of chiro school, where most students spent about 30G+ loans. And the school never really made it clear to us that we couldnt find job once we done with school. They kept telling us dont worry you will find out in our third year where we will get clinical experience. Once we are done with school the reality hit us like a Mike Tyson's punch in the face-like i say the DC in the article is not alone in her experience in fact it is a norm-Most of us got very depress specially when i had to deal with the quacks out there ruining our reputations. Of all the chiropractic schools right now, how many are really scientific bases? I would say maybe two or three at most, SCUHs and National University while Life, Logan, Clevelend, etc... teach the old school philosophy. If u dont believe, u can read the post above from someone at Life about vaccine. I was a called Medpractor by many classmates and they think i m anti-chiropractic, because i asked the hard questions very similiar to EthanHunter during my time there. That is why im opinion we have to set a standard ourshelves. We have to cut out the malignant cancers and start working with the AMA instead of fighting them. But the AMA wont work with us, if we cant get our act together. But foremost, we must get rid of the subluxation complex, because it's not scientific base. Instead maybe we should approach the inflamation model that purposed by Andrew Still, D.O. Well this is jz my two's cents. But keep the dialog going please and dont be so defensive. Thank you.

a friend of mine got accepted to life without any pre reqs...he's never been in college. he got a 'conditional acceptance' and a convenient package to do all the pre-reqs right there in the same city and then to start at life right away.

he is really exited about becoming a 'doctor' and he keeps telling me about what the school tells him the future of the profession is. i have been struggling to whether ask him a few tough questions about the school, philosophy, work prospects, etc...or just leave it be. he is a nice enough person and beleives in the 'alternative explanations' for other areas so he maybe a prime target for the 'old school' methodology of chiros...

my dilema is how do i present the material to him in a way that presents the scientific side of the field all the good things but also point out some of the more questionable practices..any suggestions? how about some links or data about the good science based schools vs the shady ones?

if i confront him, he will be pissed and may not talk to me for a while..if i don't he runs the risk of finding this out later on and possibly being in debt without the ability to pay for it or worse turn anti-medicine and basically a witch doctor...

__________________
OBGYN PGY II
I see light at the end of the tunnel!!!...wait a minute its just another freakin tunnel!

This is a very hard situations for u and ur friends. What i can only tell u is my personal opinions. First of all Life is horrible interm of basic sciences compare to Southern California University of Health Science or National. U can tell your friend to really do in depth research on chiropractic prior to committing to it. Simply put can he find a job (decent paying job 50G/year) once he graduated. He can ask the school and then call around the DC offices in his area to see if they have position like that for him. I m sure he will be very suprised to find out the reality of job market is vastly different from what his recuiter telling him. He can check with sallemae about the default rate of DC post graduated. Now to me that stat speaks volumely about the job market for DC in the real world. Why would anyone default loans repayment and ruining their credits if they have a high pay job? Unless they just stupid. Unless he is planning to open his own office rite away which is very difficult interm of market and patients bases, he will have a hard time. Bottomline is do all the research, ask the hard questions, and then if he really wants to do it (Go for it). There are many reasons why any D.C would go back to medical school, but the fact that they are willing to go back to med school and trying to get into the health care system direct way should tell you about the hardship that he will face when it's time for him to find patients. Especially when he cant have any privilage in the hospitals as DC. Well good luck to your friend. Hopefully, i didnt offend anyone. Bye.

I practiced chiropractic for 6 years. I was VERY successful, had no problem paying off loans, buying the big house on the golf course, cars, vacations.. the whole 9 yards..

However... I was unhappy as a chiropractor for a few reasons.
1. Very limiting scope and how many patients you can help
2. Image of our profession, mostly because of the REAL quacks and money hungry chiro's out there.
3. Financial security looks grim in the future for chiros.

I am now in med school. There is another former chiro in my class, he practiced for over 15 years. There are a few more in upper semesters here as well.

Any chiro that thinks he/she will get the same or equivalant education a MD gets.. STOP fooling yourself! I keep hearing in school about how many more hours we got, how we took the same classes, etc. That is all **. I would bet that less than 10% of chiros that pass their first board could pass the step one of the USMLE, even with out pharm. Classes are SOO much more in depth and you have to OWN the information, not memorize it until the boards. In medicine, you don't have the luxury of forgetting the info after a test.

If you want to spend 4 years and a few hundred grand becoming a "doctor" in chiro school.. go for it. I now understand why MD don't like chiros.. one of the main reason is because MD learn SOO much more, have to go through so much more, get dragged through the mud to become a licensed DOCTOR. Chiros go through a little over 3 years of school and poke their chests out and say.."I am a DOCTOR too".

Maybe technically you are a doctor, but in your chiro education.. You ARE inferior... in your level of training, you ARE inferior.. in your scope of practice.. You ARE inferior..

I am/was a die hard, successful chiropractor.. who loved/loves my profession.. but I am just being honest..

Chiro school is a joke..chiro profession is going down.

__________________
John Webb, MS, DC, CCEP, DAAIM, FAAPM
SMU
STUDENT
MD 2010
MBA 2009

A bad day at school is still better than a good day at work.

Dr. John raises an interesting question. In many offices you see these handouts where DCs claim to have more training than MD's. However, if you review the backgrounds of the faculty staff it isn't equivalent in many cases. Is that correct from your experience?

__________________
Moderator - State Licensing Forum

Still skeptical after all these years.
This is it. There are no hidden meanings.WYSIWYG

http://www.internetmedicalschool.homestead.com

http://www.chiropractormds.homestead.com/index.html

Very true! Chiro school brain washes their students that they are better than MDs. They also are VERY anti-medical. I have found that MDs are not Anti-chiropractic. MDs are anti- non-evidence based healthcare. Chiro is so much fluff. Most chiros have to beg patients to come in, trick them into coming in many times once they have them. It is sooo shady.. the way chiros have to get and keep patients.

Anyone thinking of going to chiro school.. don't... remember this.. if you go into medicine and you want to do manual manipulation.. you can as a MD.. if you go to chiro school and you want to really help patients..you CAN'T as a chiro.

Good luck with whatever you do..

__________________
John Webb, MS, DC, CCEP, DAAIM, FAAPM
SMU
STUDENT
MD 2010
MBA 2009

A bad day at school is still better than a good day at work.

Can you please send Emanon a message? Because he seems to be the great defender of chiropractic and have the usual comments that every chiro out telling everyone. It's so miss leading. They are not being honest like you or me. I felt bad for EthanHunter, he raised some interesting points and I think got tired of arguing with Emanon about it. Please keep the dialog going instead of using the same B.S that been hand down from the school. Thanks for ur comment.

This conversation is very interesting.
I wish my bud was reading this. I tried to convince him when we were both admitted to NYCC, and he did not listen to me.
He is almost done now, and you know what...painful blisters over his loans and how how will pay for such.

__________________
Something that bothers you, just flush it off and wipe the remaining patiently. RS-Stanislas