to develop the research chairs and professorships throughout Canada – I think that has been a wonderful strategic step on the part of the Canadian chiropractic profession that will help promote the credibility of our profession, and to expand the opportunities for additional collaborations down the road. What are your thoughts on the roll of educational institutions in influencing this way forward for the chiropractic profession? DW: Your educational institutions cannot do it in isolation from the rest of the chiropractic community. So the educa-tional institution can work to help bring people together, to foster discussions and the dialogues that are necessary. I don’t believe that any one entity by itself – be it an association, be it a chiropractic college – can establish the path for the pro-fession. It has to be done as a pure collaborative model. CMCC will certainly be very well positioned to bring peo-ple together. We can hold meetings to foster the dialogues that are necessary to do the strategic planning that will affect the entire profession. It’s not one where the CMCC itself is going to determine what the profession is going to do. Another major role that CMCC has to play is to continue to develop new knowledge, in other words, it has a responsi-bility to continue expanding its resources on research, on promoting scholarships and in training the best chiropractic practitioners as possible. We have a research responsibility, we have a teaching scholarship responsibility and we have a responsibility to create opportunities for dialogue for the profession as a whole. What do you hope to see for the chiropractic profession in the future? DW: I certainly hope to see a continued penetration of the health-care market. I would like to see a greater percentage or greater proportion of the population being able to take advantage of chiropractic care. I would like us to be able to continue to promote our expertise in managing pain condi-tions and managing chronic neuromusculoskeletal conditions. Those are things where there is tremendous demand for. We know, for example, that low back pain or low back disorders are the number one cause of disability throughout the world. As a profession, chiropractic has a tremendous advantage over the other professions in being able to manage these patients. So we have to continue to develop a reputation among the public and among other health-care providers that we truly have that expertise and are the providers of first choice. What do you see are the biggest challenges for students coming out of school and venturing out into the real world? DW: The biggest challenges fall into the category of return on investments. A student who has put four years of graduate level training under their belt and has expended that much money in terms of tuition, and room and board and such during that period of time. That’s a large debt that they have incurred to become a chiropractor. And we have to ensure that they are able to earn a decent living to pay back those debts that they have incurred. Associated with that is we have to make sure that we con-tinue to push forward professionally and politically – that we don’t see further constraints for chiropractors in the health-care reimbursement system. Even as coming up from Amer-ica, I am well acquainted with the problem that occurred with the delisting (of chiropractic service) in Ontario and that is something we just have to continue to work to try and prevent similar types of things from happening and of course to try and reverse these things going down the road. What do you anticipate would be your biggest learning curve, as you transition from the U.S. to Canada? DW: The biggest learning curve for me would be the Cana-dian political system, particularly as it relates to chiropractic politics. I’m not familiar with the main players in the chiro-practic profession in Canada as I am in the States. I will be developing relationships with these people so I have to un-derstand the operational methods up in Canada. That’s probably going to be my biggest learning curve. And of course, the health-care model is different in Canada as I am used to in the United States. On the other hand, the health-care model in the United States is different today than it was five years ago and ten years ago. That’s always a chang-ing environment. So you can never relax too long. You have to keep on top of those things. What inspires you the most about your job? DW: I love effective organizations and I love being a leader of an effective organization. Building teams, empowering people, inspiring people to share visions – those are the things that get me excited. 38 Canadian Chiropractor July/August 2014
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