Day 1: Pillars for Preggos an Addendum to What You Should Expect While Expecting

Approximately one year ago my father and I attended the 2009 functional training symposium for the NSCA. What followed was nothing short of inspiration for the work done at GCMC. It is no secret that the tide of health care is shifting towards prevention. Gone are the days of sick care, the kind of circular passive care that keeps on going, and going, and going, until your benefits are exhausted for the calendar year. GCMC is about supporting active lifestyles. It's the kind of health care facility that wont tell you to stop living. Juan Carols Santana, the representative for the NSCA at the symposium, provided us all with the vernacular to translate our heavy medical jargon into real words and concepts that everyone could understand. Thus was the birth of "pillar training" at GCMC and specialty classes like Pillars for Preggos.

It is all well and good that we should know proper lifting techniques; however, recent studies indicate that teaching proper lifting techniques does not simply translate into a world free of back pain. While the study did not answer why teaching proper lifting techniques did not prevent low back pain I have a theory of why and how that answer can lead to a better method of preventing low back pain in pregnant women and women with small children.

The answer is one of efficacy versus effectiveness. What I mean is that in theory and in ideal conditions, proper lifting techniques should help to prevent low back pain. However, we live in a less than ideal world and in less than ideal conditions. So while there may be some efficacy in lifting techniques, the advice has little to no effectiveness in the real world. And this is not a new concept; athletes do not train solely in ideal conditions. The distance runner does not adhere to only short sprints, on sunny days, with zero humidity, at zero elevation, and then go run a full marathon in Denver, Colorado in November.

This principle means a few things to the expecting mother. You can expect changes in the core musculature supporting your low back. Patterns of weak and tight muscles that will predispose you to certain aches and pains. You can also expect balance changes to come as your pregnancy progresses. Core strengthening exercises like the pelvic tilt, dead-bug, quadraped, and plank can help to recondition your core, while balance training can help prevent falls. However, you can also expect that your baby, once delivered, will put you in all kinds of precarious lifting situations, ones that making proper lifting techniques impossible.

As Juan Carlos Santana said at the Functional Training Symposium, "try to explain to a mother how to use proper squatting and reaching techniques while bending over across the back seat of a car to place a small child into a car seat or to take one out of it." It just is not possible. This is why Pillars for Preggos has the potential to be a success and help many new mothers. Life is movement, and bodies that move well, live well. It is important that you train for life. Being a mother is a full time job, 25 years later my own mother reminds me of this fact every day. So why not train your core in the positions it will be exposed to? We are all athletes of sorts. Some by vocation, some by recreation and some of us are industrial athletes. Consider yourself a domestic athlete, possibly one with the most physical demands.

Pillar Training for Preggos will be held every Saturday at 1:00pm. We had our first class today and it was a success. The group was small but there was a lot of learning and training, even for me. Of all the things I had accounted for, after all the training in classes and on my own, the one thing I did not anticipate was nausea. Needless to say we now have that under control. Today, some expecting mothers took their first steps to putting their pregnancy on a strong foundation and GCMC took their first steps towards fine tuning their first specialty group program. For more information about pillar training click here and to schedule online for the next Pillars for Preggos class click here.

I Think I can! I Think I can! Mind over low back pain.

Acute low back pain (LBP) is an interesting animal. Affecting 80% of the population and much more popular among the younger crowd, LBP is generally overwhelmingly harmless and in most cases resolves naturally within a couple of weeks. But sometimes this seemingly benign condition takes a turn for the worse. Two weeks turns into two months, two months turns into two years and now your harmless LBP has turned into a disability. LBP is the leading cause of work absenteeism in America for ages 19-45 and the second most common reason for seeing your primary care doctor. Are you curious as to why this happens? What if I told you its all in you mind?

One article in The New England Journal of Medicine compared medication, bed rest, mobilization exercises and simple reassurance and encouragement to continue normal activities in the treatment of LBP and found that simply advising people that it is safe to continue living life normally was more effective than the other options. In fact it has been shown that providing self-care advice and reassuring the patient that there is no need for fear or anxiety provided an nine-fold decrease in risk of LBP becoming chronic.

A fancy term used to describe this phenomenon is fear-avoidance beliefs (FAB). FAB turn acute pain into chronic by mentally disabling you. Vlaeyen stated that a misconception of pain being a threat can cause an individual to completely avoid physical activity and become deconditioned based on fear and anxiety. Deconditioning coupled with a feeling of hopelessness delays the recovery process.

The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research has properly stated that "the main goal for treatment of back pain has shifted from treatment of pain to treatment of activity intolerances related to pain." This means that your health care provider's job is to not simply treat your pain, but to strengthen your ability to live your life normally as quickly as you will let him or her. There is no problem with laying on a table while your health care provider attempts to decrease the pain for you, at least not initially. The problem arises when there is not a speedy transition from passive treatment to active treatment (ie full range of motion exercises).

No, chronic LBP is not purely mental. You can not just think happy thoughts and make it disappear. However, you can control how quickly you will recover. Happy thoughts can help get you pain free again. So be optimistic, the sky is not falling. Live your life, only bed rest could
truly hurt you.

Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire

Arthritis Foundation's 2009 Women's Health Summit

I wanted to take a moment write about a first time experience I had on multiple levels. My father, Matt and myself were recently asked to give a presentation on the importance of exercise with arthritis for the Arthritis Foundation's 2009 Women's Health Summit. There were multiple speakers in different rooms with various background ranging from the Chief of Geriatrics at a nationally ranked hospital to the nutritional advice presented by an RD.

As I mentioned, this was my first of many: this was my first public presentation for GCMC, this was my first time speaking in front of an elderly population, this was my first time working with the Arthritis foundation, this was my first time presenting along side MD's and DO's, and this was my first time bring our message of "Life is Movement" to a larger, non-athletic audience. And for all of those reasons I was slightly nervous. We have conveyed our ideas to many types of athletes with great reception; however, I have never tried to communicate our message to those indifferent to exercise.

I thought that my biggest problem would be my message being lost in translation to an indifferent crowd, but the real challenge wound up being much more primitive. When given the choice of which presentation to attend, the vast majority was more interested in attending a lecture on which medication they could use to manage the pain then to listen to about how maintaining a quality of life is two-sided contract. As health professionals at a movement center, our end of the contract is to get them moving again and their end is to actually take responsibility for their health and not to accept a defeatist mentality. What I found was that people are much more inclined to wave the white flag then to fight for their quality of life.

It is sort of ironic in a way, I did include in my presentation how nearly a third of those with arthritis live completely sedentary lives. I knew that the problem was a misconception that movement was the problem and that exercise would only hurt them, when in fact even Harvard has recently published that one to two hours of moderate exercise can prevent pain from osteoarthritis all together.

So I guess that my point is we have more of an up hill battle than I expected. The good news is that those that chose to listen to our presentation were very receptive to our concepts. They very much understood what I said and felt that we understood their battles. Now what is left is for us to really push the concept of exercising to reduce or eliminate pain. We have lived in a sick care nation for a very long time. We have conditioned the aging population to accept defeat: loss of hearing, loss of memory, loss of vision, loss of balance, loss of strength, loss of driving, ect. It is time to take the focus away from pain and towards performance.

At GCMC we acknowledge that everyone has a goal and desired level of performance. That can mean you want to run an ultra-marathon or that could mean you want to walk pain-free around the mall. The point is we are all training for something and that, at the very least, we are training for life.

The Exercise Experience in Adults with Arthritis

This October 3rd I will be representing GCMC, along with my father and Matt, at the Women's Health Summit for the Arthritis Foundation. The topic we will be presenting is the importance of exercise with Arthritis. It almost would seem counter-intuitive that someone with a degenerative or inflamed joint should be moving that joint freely, but it is in fact true. And not just true, but imperative. The subject touched me and I feel it is important to help shed light on the facts.

Studies have shown that despite the importance of exercise, 31% of those with arthritis live completely sedentary lives. Those that were athletic before the arthritis tend to remain active after the diagnoses. They seem to have better handle on how to exercise and how to modify an exercise due to pain. However, those that were not athletic to begin with tend to be fearful of exercise, especially if they attempt exercise and experience an copeless amount of pain.

There are over 100 types of arthritis, the most common being osteoarthritis followed by rheumatoid arthritis. Osteoarthritis (OA)is the leading cause of disability, affecting more than 22 million adults in the United States. There is no cure; however, there is a lot you can do to slow down the progression and manage the pain. I have a busy class and work schedule, so in the interest of time I will list the evidence supporting exercise and provide a link to the Arthritis Foundation for further information on how to be healthy with arthritis. Besides, the journals could not be any more to the point.

Harvard's Women's Health Watch stated that regular exercise strengthens muscles and improves flexibility and balance. It not only eases pain and stiffness but improves overall health. New research suggests that older women may be able to prevent OA pain by getting as little as one to two hours of moderately intense exercise per week.

The American Journal of Health and Behavior stated that, "regular exercise by people with arthritis delays disability; improves physical function; improves quality of life, mental health, aerobic capacity and muscle strength; promotes functional independence; and reduces pain." (Am J Health Behav. 2006;30(6):731-744)


The Journal of Rheumatology printed, "it is now established that well-designed physical exercise programs promote prolonged improvements without inducing harmful effects on disease activity and joint damage” Rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disease and physical exercise: a systematic review." (Rheumatology 2008;47:239-248)

Archives of Internal Medicine stated that, “Aerobic and resistance exercise may reduce the incidence of ADL disability in older persons with knee OA. Our study suggests that a physical exercise program may be an effective strategy for increasing the active life expectancy of older adults.”(Arch Intern Med. 2001 (161). 2309-2316)

Link for Arthritis Foundation

Primary Care: The Bastard Child of the Health Care Industry

With the economy in a recession and health care as the main topic of conversation, one thing is for certain: you can believe in change, even if it won’t be a change you believe in. There are a variety of ideas on how to improve the cost of health care and while I admittedly have not ready all of them, I will make the assumption that none involve pay increases for doctors.

Recently released in the Modern Physician’s 16^th annual Physician Compensation Survey was that more than half of the specialties that were tracked had compensation increases less than the rate of inflation . Primary care doctors were at the very bottom of that list, which should come as no surprise. It’s no wonder that the AAMC is forecasting a shortage of 124,000 physicians by 2025. How does this affect a universal health care plan, you might ask? Well when you decrease the number of physicians but increase the number of patients you find yourself in a predicament much like Massachusetts in 2006. 26 percent of residents had difficulty finding care and 35 percent of doctors stopped accepting new patients.

The Annals of Family Medicine reported that nearly one half of a primary care physician’s is spent on activities outside the examination room, predominately focused on follow-up and documentation of care for patients not physically present. Health Affairs that doctor interactions with insurers costs $23.2 billion to $31 billion a year. That is an average of $68,274 per physician per year for interactions with insurance companies.

Who is going to fill the void in primary care? It seems that either we would need 124,000 Mother Teresa's or that we would need the health care industry to brush up on it’s parental skills and coddle the primary care field. I personally do not know the answer on how to cure America’s health care woes, but it does not take a genius to see the problem. We have a rising cost for health care, a growing number of uninsured Americans, an increase in reimbursement below that of the rate of inflation and a shortage of graduating doctors willing to gamble their +$300,000 school debt on an under-appreciated and under-valued specialty. Just a fun closing fact, the top seven CEO’s for health care insurance policies earned a total of $14.2 million in 2008-2009. One source reported that over the past five years, health care insurance companies have posted 1000 percent increases in profits. Not to point fingers or anything but that increased health care money has to be going somewhere and it's certainly not going to the primary care doctor's pocket.

The Problem with Pain

What is your pain from zero to ten, ten being the worst pain you have ever felt? Does that look like anything you have come across before at a doctor’s office? If you have a child you may have come across the faces pain scale. A common variation found in many pediatric clinics. There is a long list of pain scale variations, each with their own set of advantages and disadvantages. The major problem across the board is that you can not collect true objective data in a subjective manner.

“Pain is an unpleasant feeling that is conveyed to the brain by sensory neurons. The discomfort signals actual or potential injury to the body. However, pain is more than a sensation, or the physical awareness of pain; it also includes perception, the subjective interpretation of the discomfort. Perception gives information on the pain's location, intensity, and something about its nature. The various conscious and unconscious responses to both sensation and perception, including the emotional response, add further definition to the overall concept of pain.”(Online Medical Dictionary)

Philosophy has dealt with the problem with pain as far back as Plato’s The Republic, written in 380 BC. Plato speaks of reality through his theory of forms. In his famous allegory of the cave, Plato speaks of reality being like shadows on a wall. We do not ever see the truth, just the shadows that we use to make inferences of reality. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) proclaimed “Cognito ergo sum” or “I think therefore I am.” He explains how perception must be part sensory and part cognitive. This is, for example, how one can observe a candle melt into liquid wax yet still know that the solid candle and the melted wax are one in the same. In fact, the oldest quantitative law in psychology is the Weber-Fechner law, a law concerned with the relationship between the intensity of physical stimuli and their perceptual effects. Ernst Weber found a logarithmic relationship between stimulus and perception.

What all of this means is that on a pain scale, my severed arm might feel like your stubbed toe. But with a stubbed toe and a pain rating of ten, I have learned something valuable about you and your road to recovery: you have a very low pain threshold and it’s going to be a long road. And that is in fact the value of the pain scale. Its benefit and its downfall walk hand in hand. You can not accurately describe pain with severity alone but you can use the data for other purposes. Maybe you will be less aggressive; maybe you will start with a more passive approach, either way you can avoid scaring off a patient and formulate the best way to approach his or her treatment.

And what if I walk into your office years after my severed arm and I circle a ten again for my pain? You better give me some immediate medical attention because something is seriously wrong. Unlike the other guy, when I cry wolf granny has been eaten and I am about to be dessert. However, if I walk in with a stubbed toe and a pain level of two you can more than likely be as aggressive as you would like for a quick recovery.

Pain scale ratings are important and very necessary. Use them as a basis for treatment approach and use them as a way to monitor progress. If you would like something more reliable, use more complex pain scales such as the McGill Pain Questionnaire which uses twenty subclasses of words that break down into four major groups to describe the sensory qualities of pain, the affects of pain, the overall experience of pain and some miscellaneous characteristics of pain. No matter which pain scale you use and how you use it just remember this: perception is reality and perceiving is believing.

Confidence

At the Movement Center we preach the importance of confidence. No matter what industry you exist in confidence confidence precedes success. Namely: confidence in the providers, confidence in the provider's education and confidence in their services and products. As a chiropractor too must be confident, confident that you can deliver what you promise.

There are few educated and objective people out there that will still argue the total ineffectiveness of chiropractic. In a previous post I spoke of my gripe with the fact that the word chiropractic is often used erroneously as a service when it is in fact a profession. When you realize that the services we employ are often the same as medical doctors, osteopaths and physical therapists, you come to the inevitable acceptance that the profession of chiropractic is obviously not ineffective. Even the chiropractic manipulation has been shown to be effective in treatment of low back and neck pain.

So how confident should you be in our education? Here is my current curriculum at the University of Bridgeport Chiropractic College: (Click here for full details on curriculum)

Year One
Semester One						Sem.
	Number	Course	Lecture	Lab	Hours	Hours
	AN 511	Cell and Tissue Microscopic Anatomy and Physiology	3	0	54	3
	AN 512	Functional Anatomy I: Spine	3	3	108	4.5
	PP 511	Principles and Practice I: Chiropractic History and Philosophy	2	0	36	2
	BC 511	Biochemistry, Metabolism, and Nutrition	4	0	72	4
	PP 512	Principles and Practice II: The Doctor Patient Relationship: Communication Skills, Ethics, and Case History	2	0	36	2
	AN 513	General Anatomy I: Viscera	3	3	108	4.5
	TE 511	Chiropractic Examination Skills I: Palpation and Biomechanics of the Spine and Pelvis	2	0	36	2
	TE 511L	Chiropractic Examination Skills I: Palpation and Biomechanis of the Spine and Pelvis	0	3	54	1.5
	AN 514	Clinical Embryology I	1	0	18	1
TOTAL HOURS			20	9	522	24.5
Semester Two						Sem.
	Number	Course	Lecture	Lab	Hours	Hours
	DI 521	Diagnostic Imaging I: Normal Anatomy of the Spine and Pelvis, Introduction to X-Ray Imaging and Physics	2	2	72	3
	PH 521	Organ System Microscopic Anatomy and Physiology I	2	0	36	2
	NS 521	Neuroscience I	3	0	54	3
	PP 523	Principles and Practice III: Contemporary Chiropractic Studies	2	0	36	2
	AN 525	General Anatomy II: Head and Neck	3	3	108	4.5
	AN 526	Functional Anatomy II: Extremities	3	3	108	4.5
	MB 521	Clinical Microbiology Introduction to Infectious Diseases I	2	0	36	2
	TE 522	Chiropractic Examination Skills II: Palpation and Biomechanics of the Extremities	1	0	18	1
	TE 522L	Chiropractic Examination Skills II: Palpation and Biomechanics of the Extremities	0	3	54	1.5
TOTAL HOURS			18	11	522	23	.5

Year Two
Semester Three						Sem.
	Number	Course	Lecture	Lab	Hours	Hours
	NS 612	Neurosciences II	3	0	54	3
	PA 611	Fundamentals of Pathology	2	1	54	2.5
	PH 612	Organ System Microscopic Anatomy and Physiology II	4	2	108	5
	MB 612	Infectious Diseases II	2	0	36	2
	TE 613	Technique Procedures I: Introductio to Full Spine Technique	1	0	0	1
	TE 613L	Technique Procedures I: Introduction to Full Spine Technique	0	3	54	1.5
	DX 611	Diagnostic Skills I: Orthopedic Examination of the Spine, Pelvis, and Extremities	2	0	36	2
	DX 611L	Diagnostic Skills I: Orthopedic Examination of the Spine, Pelvis, and Extremities	0	4	72	4
	DX 612	Diagnostic Skills II: Physical Examination	2	0	36	2
	DX 612L	Diagnostic Skills II: Physical Examination	0	3	54	1.5
	DI 612	Diagnostic Imaging II: Normal Anatomy	1	2	54	2
TOTAL HOURS			11	15	576	24.5
Semester Four						Sem.
	Number	Course	Lecture	Lab	Hours	Hours
	PA 622	Systems Pathology II	4	2	108	5
	TE 624	Technique Procedures II: Intermediate Full Spine and Upper Extremity Technique	2	0	36	2
	TE 624L	Technique Procedures II: Intermediate Full Spine and Upper Extremity Technique	0	4	72	2
	DI 623	Diagnostic Imaging III: Bone Pathology	2	2	72	3
	DX 624	Laboratory Diagnosis	3	0	54	3
	MB 623	Public Health I	2	0	36	2
	DX 623	Diagnostic Skills III: Clinical Neurology and clinical Examination of the Nervous System	2	0	36	2
	DX 623L	Diagnostic Skills III: Clinical Neurology and Clinical Examination of the Nervous System	0	4	72	2
	TE 625	Technique Procedures III: Soft Tissue	2	0	36	2
	TE 625L	Technique Procedures III: Soft Tissue	0	2	36	1
	CN 621	Nutritional Pathology	2	0	36	2
	PP 624	Principles and Practice III: Research Methods	2	0	36	2
			16	12	504	22

Year Three
Semester Five						Sem.
	Number	Course	Lecture	Lab	Hours	Hours
	TE 716	Technique Procedures IV: Intermediate Full Spine and Lower Extremity Technique	2	0	36	2
	TE 716L	Technique Procedures IV: Intermediate Full Spine and Lower Extremity Technique	0	4	72	2
	DI 714	Diagnostic Imaging IV: Arthritis and Trauma	2	2	72	3
	PT 711	Physiological Therapeutics I	1	0	18	1
	PT 711L	Physiological Therapeutics I	0	2	36	1
	DD 711	Differential Diagnosis I: Internal Disorders	5	0	90	5
	DD711L	Differential Diagnosis I: Internal Disorders	0	1	18	0.5
	CN 712	Clinical Nutrition: Treatment and Management	2	0	36	2
	PH 713	Toxicology/Pharmacology	2	0	36	2
	TE 717L	Technique Procedures V: Soft Tissue II	0	2	36	1
	ER 711	Emergency Procedures	1	0	18	1
	ER 711L	Emergency Procedures	0	2	36	1
	RS 711	Thesis I	0	0	0	1
TOTAL HOURS			15	13	504	22.5
Semester Six						Sem.
	Number	Course	Lecture	Lab	Hours	Hours
	DI 725	Diagnostic Imaging V: Chest and Abdomen	1	2	54	2
	TE 728	Technique Procedures VI: Advanced Chiropractic Technique I	2	0	36	2
	TE 728L	Technique Procedures VI: Advanced Chiropractic Technique I	0	3	54	1.5
	DI 726	X-Ray Positioning and Physics	3	2	90	4
	DD 722	Differential Diagnosis II: Neuromusculosketal	4	0	72	4
	PT 722	Physiological Therapeutics II: Rehabilitation	2	0	36	2
	PT 722L	Physiological Therapeutics II: Rehabilitation	0	2	36	1
	DX 725	Special Populations	3	0	54	3
	CS 721	Clinic Services I: Student Clinic	2	4	108	4
	MB 724	Public Health II: Community Health and Wellness	2	0	36	2
	RS 722	Thesis II	0	0	0	1
TOTAL HOURS			17	13	540	24.5

Year Four
Semester Seven						Sem.
	Number	Course	Lecture	Lab	Hours	Hours
	CS 812	Clinical Services II	0	25	450	12.5
	DI 827	X-Ray Review	2	0	36	2
	PP 815	Small Business Management, Insurance, Office Procedures, Jurisprudence and Ethics	4	0	72	4
	TE 819	Technique Procedures VII: Advanced Chiropractic Technique II	0	6	108	3
	PS 811	Clinical Psychology	2	0	36	2
	RS 813	Thesis III	0	0	0	1
TOTAL HOURS			8	31	702	24.5
Semester Eight						Sem.
	Number	Course	Lecture	Lab	Hours	Hours
	CS 823	Clinical Services III	0	25	450	12.5
	RS 824	Thesis IV: Completion and Submission	0	0	0	1.5
	TOTAL HOURS
	CS 824	Clinical Services (Six weeks) Summer Session	0	25	150	4
TOTAL HOURS			0	5	600	18

The Center for Studies in Health Sciences based out of Washington, DC put together this comparison of a chiropractic physician's versus a medical physician's education:

	Chiropractic Schools		Medical Schools
	Mean	Percentage	Mean	Percentage
Total Contact Hours	4822	100%	4667	100%
Basic science hours	1416	29%	1200	26%
Clinical science hours	3406	71%	3467	74%
Chiropractic science hours	1975	41%	0	0%
Clerkship hours	1405%	29%	3467	74%
Comparisons of the Overall Curriculum Structure for Chiropractic and Medical Schools Source: Center for Studies in Health Policy, Inc., Washington, DC. Personal communication of 1995 unpublished data from Meredith Gonyea, PhD.

The largest difference is that a medical doctor will go on to do a residency after medical school to specialize in their interest, while the chiropractor will go into either private practice or work as an associate to continue to fine tune his or her skills. But lets face it, chiropractors aren't performing major surgeries and they are not directly treating life and death pathologies. Embrace this fact! Chiropractors treat dysfunctions not pathologies. The beautiful difference being that dysfunctions are often reversible, while pathologies are often a life long condition and typically much more serious. And we treat these dysfunctions with great efficiency. This is why Consumer Reports lists chiropractors at the top of the patient satisfaction list for low back pain and why the scientific community supports chiropractic for soft tissue dysfunctions like low back pain (British Medical Journal, Western Journal of Medicine and Ontario Ministry of Health).

No matter what industry you apply the necessity of confidence to, there is one universal denominator that must exist. What do all the aspects of chiropractic that I have listed have in common to allow for confidence? They are all empirically supported and tested. Scientific literature is the chiropractor's product testing and research and development. Thus, it is extremely important that chiropractors employ methods that are tried and true. This why I have no problem looking a prospective patient in the eyes and telling him or her that I can help them. Everything I use is supported and tested and I have the most current research to back the statements that I make.

So chiropractors, have confidence in yourselves, your education, and your services so that your patients can have confidence in you and your profession.

Share Openly and Freely,

John Giacalone Jr

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The Chiropractic School Self-Esteem Issue

Coming from a family of 7 chiropractors has allowed me to see some of the amazing benefits of the profession. Growing up in a large chiropractic family went so far as to provide me the delusion that chiropractic was as main stream as any other health profession. I was rarely sick, I was surround by successful doctors and all I encountered were amazing testimonials to the credit of chiropractic care. Attending chiropractic school has given me a much different perspective.

I was a rather distinguished undergraduate student. I graduated with a gpa north of 3.8 and dual degrees in Biochemistry and Chemical Biotechnology. I won many awards and made many friends. My original thought was to pursue medical school and specialize as a non-surgical sports physician. I had the ability and honestly figured, "why not?" To make a long story short, just before I officially signed off on my acceptance to medical school and began that journey I decided that, if I was going to be non-surgical then why not just be a chiropractic sports physician like my father. He does very well and I could finish with a lot less debt and in less time. When I told my parents I had changed my mind and would be attending chiropractic school instead they all but disowned me. You would think I told them I was quitting school all together and telling them I would just live off of them at home for the rest of my life.

The reaction confused me as I'm sure it confuses you. Why would a successful chiropractor coming from a family of chiropractors be upset that his first born was following his foot steps? The answer was quite simple, he warned me that I had only been exposed to one side of the profession. He warned me that I would not be challenged and that I was throwing away everything I ever did in undgrad. He told me anyone with a pulse can go to chiropractic school and that that was one of the professions largest problems. I did what any other good child would do, I ignored him.

Going into my third year of chiropractic school, I have seen where my father was right and where he was wrong. I am very much proud of my decision and of chiropractic. I was fortunate to go to a good school with some amazing professors. In a profession that is a relative underdog in main stream health care I can say I have been given the best advantage at UBCC. I have been given a much larger diagnostic ability than I ever imagined and arguably more than I ever cared to know. This truly is pleasing because my father has always said, "the manipulation does not make the chiropractor a doctor: anybody can master that skill. What makes us doctors is our ability to diagnose. That is what differentiates us from the person that cracks their friends back", and I feel whole-heartily that he was right. Nothing aggravates me more than when someone references a student that has recently failed out of chiropractic school and they say "its a shame, he was such a great adjuster." The adjustment is a tool and a skill that anyone with a good book and a daring friend can master with enough time.

My father was wrong about the level of education I could attain from chiropractic school. It is something he gladly admits defeat in. If anything, I have made him a believer again in the longevity of the profession. Where he was undoubtedly right though was in the acceptance issue of chiropractic schools.

Our best doctors in chiropractic dominate over the medical general practitioner when it comes to soft tissue dysfunction. However, our worst chiropractor doctors make the worst medical practitioner look like a Nobel laureate. It is a conflict that must be reconciled for us to achieve true positive recognition from our medical peers. Dissenters do not look for the best chiropractor to make an example out of, they look for the worst and we give the worst to them.

Chiropractic suffers from a self-esteem issue. It believes it isn't good enough to attract the eights, nines and tens out there so it settles for the threes and fours, discarding of any self-worth or value. It is insulting to someone that truly wants to be a chiropractor to sit next to the students that simply do it because they know they can get in and that if they can pass the classes they can make a good living. The schools are not doing the profession or the student any favor when they blatantly ignore the fact that a particular student should not represent the profession and probably will not succeed either as a student or as a business person. It would seem unethical to allow someone to go into great debt knowing that they will undoubtedly fail, harm every other chiropractor, or even worse harm a patient. A pulse is simply just not good enough to be the test for admission. We desperately need to raise our standards. Life as a chiropractor does not have to be an uphill battle. I am tired of defending our profession due to the below average students we falsely label doctors. Chiropractic schools, I say to you, have some self-worth and stop proselytizing yourselves to the low caliber applicants. Is it really that simple? Probably not. This may mean the closure of the privately owned schools and growth of the chiropractic colleges that exist with the university setting. Perhaps this will be my next blog. Thank you for reading.

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John Giacalone Jr

Type and Number of Schools	% with Bachelor's Degree	Avg. Minimum GPA Required	Avg. GPA of Enrollees
Medical (17)	99.35%	3.16	3.56
Optometry (16)	76.88%	2.55	3.30
Osteopathic (16)	97.00%	2.68	3.26
Dental (15)	66.87%	2.79	3.13
Podiatry (7)	89.40%	2.76	3.06
Chiropractic (16)	42.25%	2.38	2.90

Reference

1. Doxey TT, Phillips RB. Comparison of entrance requirements for health care professions. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics 20:86-91, 1997.