When I encounter something new that produces a “That’s interesting” response, and then come across it again a few days later, I’ve learned to pay attention and take such cues seriously. That’s what’s happened during the last week or so when I have heard two people suggest that at the consultation chiropractors should ask patients why they have chosen to seek the services of a chiropractor… now.
Many, especially those experiencing a bit of scarcity, might equate asking such a question as “looking a gift horse in the mouth.” Be thankful someone warmer than room temperature has shown up and get busy! However, if you have an interest in creating deep, long-lasting, influential patient relationships, such a question could provide valuable insights into a patient’s worldview and their motivations. It might even shed some light on the best way to frame your chiropractic explanations.
I suppose a related question would be, “What other methods have you tried in an attempt to solve this problem?”
In other words, when a new patient manifests in your practice, there’s much more going on than simply a patient who has wandered into your practice and wants the services of a chiropractor.
Dig deeper and find out how confident they are about how likely they think chiropractic could help them. Explore whether it was the pressure of a loved one or simply desperation that has brought them to your practice. Be sure to find out if they’ve seen a chiropractor before—and why they’re seeing you instead of him or her. Answers to these questions give you the context by which your intervention and your explanations will be judged by the patient.
I raise this because an increasing number of chiropractors appear to be treating spines and subluxations, rather than caring for people with them. Besides thinking the patient’s problem is their problem, many chiropractors are pursuing the elimination of subluxations with the same vigor that oncologists attack cancers. However, making subluxations the “boogie man” is the practice of medicine.
I raise this, not because I’m anti-medicine. Far from it. I have no interest in living in a world without medical doctors, hospitals or antibiotics! But I mention it for two reasons.
1. You don’t have a license to practice medicine. Turns out, your very right to practice chiropractic, written into the laws of many jurisdictions, is the idea that chiropractic is not medicine and is a separate, distinct and nonduplicative healing art. When you “treat” subluxations, you’re practicing medicine—even if you don’t use drugs or therapy.
2. When you practice medicine, patients expect medical results. Like clearing up an infection or a one-time surgical intervention. When you practice medical chiropractic, not only do patients expect you to “fix” them (while they do little more than reluctantly show up three times a week), they expect that after you get them out of their jam, they will never have to see you again. However, most patients will experience a relapse if they discontinue care once they feel better.
Most allopaths, whether medical doctors or chiropractors, often overlook the fact that whatever symptom the patient is expressing is the body’s perfect response to efforts designed to accommodate its environment, whether neck pain from anger, low back pain from feeling unsupported in a loveless marriage or headaches from a compromised cervical curve. The symptom is a lesson; an attempt by the body to announce the need for change. Heroically rushing in (practicing medicine) to reduce the symptom may produce admiration; maybe even respect. But in the process, you’ve selfishly made the relationship about you and stolen the meaning of their symptom, its story and its lesson.
Slow down.
Someone new, who has waited weeks before mustering the courage to call your practice or is there only because of the begging of a spouse, has a story. A patient who is wary, afraid they’ll have to come in for the rest of their life or who has been threatened with surgery, has a story. When you create the opportunity for that story to be told, not only will you know how to better frame what you say and do, but you can more effectively lay the groundwork for the connection essential for healing.
“I’m curious, why did you happen to choose today as the day to find out if chiropractic could help you?”
In your pursuit of reducing nerve interference below the occiput, make sure you don’t overlook the nerve interference above the occiput.