For the DC's (or anyone who can answer) :)

[medgoal]

So I am honestly debating chiro/med....

 

I have heard multiple times that you can't do BOTH. Why is this? What is the regulations that specify this??

 

Thanks!

[Daemos]

Chiropractic is a scam. Most chiropractors and all schools teach 'subluxsation' theory.

 

I suggest looking up what that is.

 

Chiropractic is considered alternative medicine, their scope is very limited, but they claim to have equivalient education to allopathic medical students.

[shaka84]

Interesting. Chiropractic is a scam? I am not sure what you mean here since there is considerable evidence supporting its use in low back pain and possibly tension headaches. I would agree that there are some very questionable chiropractors but certainly not all. Here's a newsflash for you, there are some questionable MD's out there too. Take a look at some of the medicare fraud in the US.

 

As far as the subluxation theory goes, ya, I agree it's BS. Not all schools teach this. I am not sure what percentage of chiros use this terminology but again certainly not all. Many chiropractors are evidence based.

 

Chiropractic is somewhat in the middle of alternative and mainstream. This is very clinician dependant and the weakest part of the chiropractic profession as you never know what you are going to get.

 

The scope of practice is limited and it should be. The education in not equivalent. Chiros have more MSK, anatomy and possibly nutrition education and med has much more path, physiology, histology, microbi, CV, resp, etc...

 

I would recommend that you figure out what you want out of your professional life. Chiro is much easier path but much more limited in scope and opportunity.

 

If you have an MD degree and extra training in manipulation you can do both. This would be very unusual and I know of only a few clinicians who do this.

 

shaka

[Daemos]

I will agree Chriopractic is great for lower back pain, and other back pain problems.

 

Most schools DO teach subluxsation theory, the biggest schools such as Life, and Palmer have that as their philosophy to chiropractic. the Body's innate intelligence and that subluxsations to weaken the body's innate intelligence to heal, was one of the founding principles of chiropractic.

 

Most graduates I have encountered from CMCC and North Western, whom do not LEARN subluxsation theory, end up selling subluxsation theory because that is what sells and gets people to go back once a week for treatment. Maybe you've have had positive experiences with chiropractors, but so far I have not found one chiropractor that does not sell some variant of the subluxsastion theory.

[shaka84]

I would hazard to guess that I have more experience with chiropractors than yourself since I have a chiropractic degree.

 

I agree that Palmer and Life teach the subluxation theory. They are garbage schools that unfortunately pump out the most chiropractors. It is too bad that they disregard science to hang on to a belief that is untestable and utter nonsense.

 

Many schools don't teach subluxation theory as a core principle and choose to teach it as a historical point only. The schools that come to mind are CMCC, Northwestern, Western States, LACC, University of Bridgeport, National and New York. It is true that some of their graduates gravitate to preaching subluxation theory to help their business. This is sad.

 

I am not subluxation based. I have many friends that are not subluxation based. I belong to list-serve full of evidence-based chiropractors. There are less and less philosophical chiros and more and more evidence-based chiros but there is still alot of work to be done. There are many universities in Canada that have chiropractic chairs on faculty. The change is slow but progressive.

 

Saying all that, if someone asked me whether they should choose medicine or chiropractic I would suggest medicine due to opportunity and choice.

 

shaka

[Daemos]

It's unfortunate that i've had such bad experiences with chiropractors. I've been to at least a dozen, all from the list of schools that don't focus on subluxsation theory, and they've all tried to sell subluxsation theory on me, and tried to make me sign contracts before my first adjustment! Do you have a list of evidence-based chiropractors across the country?

[Borborygmi]

It's unfortunate that i've had such bad experiences with chiropractors. I've been to at least a dozen, all from the list of schools that don't focus on subluxsation theory, and they've all tried to sell subluxsation theory on me, and tried to make me sign contracts before my first adjustment! Do you have a list of evidence-based chiropractors across the country?

 

I have to say, your experiences seem fairly strange. Perhaps it's limited to your geographic area? But I also find it strange that you've seen chiropractors from every school listed in the above post. I've seen 5 chiropractors in various cities and with various source institutions of education. Not one has even offered subluxation techniques, and none have put me on contract. 60 dollar assessment plus 30-35 for regular adjustments seems very very standard. So I would either question the merit of your posts, or the possibility of a geographic anomaly for the chiropractors you've seen.

 

What I would say about my experience with chiro is that, it seems to help in the short term, unless you are doing regular adjustments over a very long period of time. Personally, my body almost always adjusted to its previous position even after months of regular adjustments. Particularly in my neck. I would say though, that the adjustments helped my hips, but it was in conjunction with stretching techniques. I used to have horrid hip problems.

 

And of all the dr's (including chiros) that I've run into, I've had way more bad experiences with MD's than with chiros. Number of each seen should also be considered here, however. Frankly, if someone is going to be adjusting your spine (!!), I would hope you would do a bit more research than just walking into some random office and laying on a table anyhow.

[Jochi1543]

LOL @ poor OP who never got his/her Q answered.

 

 

And let me continue to sidetrack by saying I was seen by 2 chiros for a shoulder problem, with no relief; 2 massage therapists (short-term relief, only for a few days and not all the way); then I saw a PM&R specialist, who teamed up with a kinesiologist, and after seeing both for 3 weeks, my shoulder issues were fixed - AND I was given all kinds of advice as to how to keep it at bay, without having to ever come back.

[RobynM]

^^

That's funny cuz I had the opposite experience. When I was 12 I had severe chronic headaches for about a year and half. Saw two GPs, went for a gait assessment, saw a dentist, saw a neurologist (who put me on Toradol, a serious NSAID contradindicated for under 18) and still had these awful headaches ever day. Went to a chiro, he found a vertebrae in my neck that was out of line and pushing on some nerves, fixed it and they were GONE. These headaches come back every so often but a quick trip to my chiro and they're gone again.

 

And I wish I could help the OP but I have no idea!

[shaka84]

I answered the OP at the end of my original post.

 

You can practice both. An MD license is unrestricted with appropriate manipulative training. In reality this would be very unusual. I know of only one DC/MD that practices both. Strangely, in my experience the most common specialty of chiros becoming MD's is radiology. Not a lot of hands on there in general.

 

Becoming a chiro then doing med school is crazy! It is a long, long, long and expensive road. I see no real benefit to it unless you are a sadist.

 

shaka

[Hygrade]

So I am honestly debating chiro/med....

 

I have heard multiple times that you can't do BOTH. Why is this? What is the regulations that specify this??

 

Thanks!

 

You can be a member of a provincial chiropractic board/ordre during your medical studies or as long as you are a student member of the medical board/collège of your province (before the specialization internship). The opposite is also true, but somewhat different: you can be a member of the medical board during your DC internship.

 

Still, you can't be a full member of both boards: you have also to choose between the title you wanna bear after your graduation since you can't call yourself officially Dr. X Y chiropraticien DC, MD for the patients.

 

If you choose to be a DC, your practice scope is greatly reduced (as in what you studied for and could do if you had the right isn't longer legal) and a lot of things you could do as a MD are now illegal if you went from MD to DC.

 

If you choose to be a MD, (and that applies even if you didn't do your DC degree) you can virtually do whatever you want in the DC ''usual'' scope.

 

The Loi sur la Chiropratique (Quebec) states that the Chiropractor ''assesses and diagnoses back and articulation problems and proceeds to correction with his hands with manipulation of the vertebral spine and pelvic bones.'' This law is currently being revised, but political strings and old quarrels prevent it to be renewed promptly.

 

For the Loi médicale du Québec, things are different. When a member of the Collège des Médecins, you can do whatever in you knowledge and good will to help your patient, and that implies spinal manipulation if you want so. Physical therapists, MD's and DC's can currently legally proceed to spinal manipulations regardless of their formation in spinal manipulation in the first two cases. Diplomed osteopaths (in Qc) can also, because of a ''vide juridique'' (absence of law) do whatever they want also regardless of their formation.

 

So, you can do chiropractic when you're a MD, but cannot call yourself a DC anymore...

 

If you wanna know why it is that way, the best thing to do is to read on the subject from both sides, since health practicioners are almost always emotional on this topic and can't therefore give you any rational information. For the majority, the old generation of MD's will call chiropractic unscientific and pointless, because they won't read any of the various and numerous papers going out from the Laboratoire de recherche sur les affections vertébrales (UQTR) or any other journal. On the same way, the old DC's often call the medical and chiropractic paradigm uncompatible and will often talk BS about the MD's too. It's like Yin and Yang: they are supposed to be opposites, but are a part of the same thing: in this case, it is the healing and wellness of the people.

[FitnessFreak]

Hello everyone!

I realise this thread is old and hopefully the OP has made the right decision for him/herself but I just wanted to chime my 2-cents as a DC.

 

Fast forward to 2012, I would have to say that Shaka's viewpoints still ring very, very true. Chiropractic offers a very limited scope of practice with very few opportunities beyond private practice. Unless you have the financial backing to build up your clientèle you will barely make enough money to pay back those hefty school loans (I think CMCC in Toronto has already broken mid $20K per year for schooling, and that is on top of the cost of doing the prerequisite 3 years of undergrad). It is, for the most part, a non-transferable degree so if you decided you want to do something else after, it won't count for squat; you will be starting from scratch.

 

As far as its validity, I consider my schooling quite comparable to what I would get at physiotherapy school and do treatments identical to that of a PT. I also consider myself evidenced-based and do not treat 'subluxations' but concrete conditions for which physical therapy has efficacy in managing.

 

As much as I love what I do as a chiropractor and feel that I learned a lot both in school and clinical practice, it is simply not a cost-effective degree. You are MUCH better off doing medicine for the wider scope of practice. If you like treating MSK conditions specifically, there are tonnes of more opportunities available in physiotherapy and the school is WAY cheaper. If you REALLY crave that 'Dr' title, do a PhD in rehabilitative sciences after your Masters in Physiotherapy; your patients will likely not know the difference in clinical practice.

 

Btw, hello forum! This is my first post and hopefully I didn't break any etiquette rules already. I have been reading quite a bit and have learned a lot! I look forward to being a positive contributing member on the boards

[Lactic Folly]

Welcome FF! Thanks for your posts - enjoyed reading them

[FitnessFreak]

Aww, thank you Lactic Folly! I'm glad my posts are well received so far. It would seem that I will be in good company on this forum