More than Medicine

            I urge Mr. Underwood to include CAM providers if his goal is to overcome “traditional academic and professional silos” in order to generate “more satisfied patients” as he mentions in his op-ed piece. Indeed, it is past time we gave the patients the best of both worlds.

2) Mistaken Identity

Mr. Underwood also confounds the situation with his remark about his intended “holistic approach.” Let’s be clear: the “holistic approach” is not simply the combination of multiple medical/allopathic methods as he suggests. Indeed, “holistic medicine” is an oxymoron similar to cheap gas, friendly fire, or FOX News contending it is “fair and balanced.” (Okay, stop laughing).

In complementary and alternative healthcare, the vitalistic and energetic aspects are also taken into account with physical aspects when assessing a person’s overall well-being. However, this primordial God-factor in healthcare has long been denounced as quackery by the allopathic profession.

This aversion to vitalism in medicine was revealed in an unnerving admission by Francis R. Collins, MD, currently director of the National Institutes of Health and the former director of the Human Genome Project.  From his professional experience, he admits as many as sixty percent of doctors and elite scientists are atheists.^[2] 

In effect, many atheists in the medical profession have taken the “bio” out of biology with the condemnation of vitalism in healthcare. Since Mercer is a Christian-based university, I find this atheism particularly ironic, but indicative that the power of political medicine supersedes any belief in the God factor in medical education.

3) Medical Incompetence

Another area badly in need of reform is the sub-par training of medical primary care providers in the diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) and back pain in particular.

Not only has chiropractic care been vindicated in 1994  by the US Public Health Service as a “preferred treatment” for low back pain[3], researchers also discovered that the majority of medical primary care physicians were very poorly trained in back pain and MSDs as well as found their heavy reliance upon outdated treatments. Moreover, 82% of MDs flunked a 25-question MSD competency exam. ^[4]  

Researchers also discovered that 50% of all medical schools do not require MSD training, evident at both Emory and Mercer medical schools. Even Scott Boden, MD, currently director of the Emory Orthopaedic and Spine Center in Atlanta, admitted that  “Many, if not most, primary care providers have little training in how to manage musculoskeletal disorders.”^[5]

This is one area where MDs have a lot to learn from chiropractors who now carry the mantle of America’s primary spine care providers.

5) Medical War Against Chiropractors

Mercer students are being taught how to appreciate the strengths and roles of the various team members and how to value what the other health care professionals bring to the table.

May I ask Mr. Underwood who is allowed to sit at his table? Indeed, this reminds me of the 1967 American film, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, and Katharine Hepburn, that dealt with the issue of racial prejudice.

Similarly, medical prejudice is an issue Mercer has yet to address. So, let me ask: Is Mr. Underwood serious about teaching students the value of “other health care professionals” like chiropractors or does his call for positive reception only include other medical personnel?

As proof of this lingering medical discrimination, let me also ask Mr. Underwood if Mercer has ever taught CAM courses or allowed a chiropractor to speak on campus?

Certainly, the exclusionary history of the medical profession clearly illustrates its lack of diversity. Indeed, does Mercer still encourage the traditional medical hate speech that typifies political medicine’s boycott of chiropractic, a topic I discuss at length in my book, The Medical War Against Chiropractors?

Considering chiropractors are the third-largest physician-level health professionals in the world, ranking only behind MDs and dentists in total numbers, to exclude chiropractors may reveal that not all healthcare providers are welcomed at his table.

Perhaps the real challenge for Mr. Underwood is a question of ethics—to teach tolerance, the power of vitalism in the healing process, and the value of diversity in healthcare treatments.

Regards,

JC Smith, MA, DC

Warner Robins

www.smithspinalcare.com