Re: Volume 22, Issue 4 Dear TAC: Although I enjoyed the cover article in your recent edition, "Where is Chiropractic Headed?", I must admit great disappointment with the ICA president's response. Rather than [offer] a detailed approach to the important issues that we face, he chose to recite old worn phrases that seem more like PR and recruiting slogans than meaty answers to serious problems. I had hoped Dr. Hoffman would bring the ICA into the 21st century, but his response indicated otherwise. Let me explain: 1) Dr. Hoffman, in the first para- graph, sent a salvo across the ACA's bow with the standard old straight vs. mixer [falderal]. Ironically, Hoffman speaks of the "fringes of chiropractic, such as chiropractic 'medicine', the 'medipractor' notion and various schemes to move chiropractic into the medical model, so we will be more 'acceptable' to the health care establishment." The movement to rational chiropractic from BJ's radical position is a mature attempt to overcome decades of hyperbole that the ICA obviously stills subscribes to and with which it is willing to alienate the 90% of DCs who utilize other treatments. 2) Dr. Hoffman insists, "The sub-luxation-based schools are the ones drawing the strongest student populations and, by the way, graduating the most confident, motivated and focused students." ...The facts indicate otherwise. In fact, Life University is presently shrinking in size, dropping from its all-time high of 3,800 to less than 2,200 today. As well, in my small town, the most successful DCs are AC A members doing full-scope chiropractic care.... While it may appear blasphemous to [Dr. Hoffman], there exists another branch of the chiropractic tree that is alive and well, and it doesn't stem from the simplistic radical thinking of BJ.... If Hoffman implies this will lead to the "death of chiropractic," he's sadly mistaken. 3) Dr. Hoffman accuses [some progressive DCs] of stripping the "adjustment of its 'uniqueness' to relegate it to 'manipulation' status." He decries those in Rhode Continued on Page 22 ...from Page 16 Island who would "contemplate a trade" in order to place "the chiropractic model under the medical model." In fact, he's embellishing the truth with standard ICA hyperbole, just as Braille did when Florida re-defined its law to include "chiropractic medicine" so that DCs would be included as physicians. This is simple legal semantics that keeps us on par with MD's, otherwise DCs would have been relegated to the status of PT's. Yet the ICA has inflamed this issue with its misinformation only to incite divisiveness among our ranks, or so it seems. 4) Dr. Hoffman states "those who are pushing a merger with medicine are acting contrary to the vision and beliefs of the vast majority in chiropractic." To think that chiropractic must stay on the fringe of mainstream is illogical in this day of inclusion. Rather than espousing the rhetoric of yesteryear, why can't the ICA find a way of interdependence with the medical world to give patients the best of both worlds? As one who has sustained three serious spinal injuries, believe me when I say, without soft-tissue therapy and muscular rehab, no spine will stabilize Let me ask Dr. Hoffman a few questions that I had hoped he would have addressed in his perspective: Just where is any mention of strategies to increase our market share? What is your plan to unite this downtrodden profession? What is your plan to convince politicians of our need for full-scope, direct access in Medicare and in the Military Health Services? What is your plan to increase chiropractic's role in workers' comp programs, where, in Georgia, its fallen 70% in the last few years? What is your plan to improve our social and cultural authority to overcome... tacky ads that have soiled our collective image? Unfortunately, it appears Dr. Hoffman has no plan for our future, just the same old plans that have failed in the past. Sadly, Hoffman has proved that he is not a man of vision, nor the leader that will bridge the gap to unite this profession. If nothing else came of value from his article, at least we know the ICA is not the group destined to lead us out of the abyss we're presently in. Fortunately, I made the right choice years ago when I quit the ICA in disgust and joined the ACA. J. C. Smith, D.C.
