COMMENTARY TALKING POINTS Pondering prescriptions I Keeping drugs away from our scope of practice BY ED LUBBERDINK was horrified to see that 47 per cent of our profession is in favour of the move to expand the chiro-practic scope of practice to in-clude limited prescription rights. This is according to results from the recent Canadian Chiropractor Practice Trends Survey. As a practicing chiropractor for 36 years, I have never found a situation where my prescribing would have been of value to the patient. If the patient insists on taking drugs then there is enough drugs over the counter, such as Advil, Tylenol and Robax, that they have access to. I am not saying that I recommend these to my patients; I am saying they have access if required. So, why the desire to prescribe? I would say the reason has more to do with the “optics” to the public and other competing professions that man-age “pain-based” care. I recall going to Parker seminars early in my career and listening to senior chiropractors talk about chiro-practors who actually went to jail to preserve their philosophy. That is how strong their conviction was in the prin-ciple of what they were doing. While I do not recommend we all camp out at BJ Palmers campsite, and that chiro-practic has evolved since then, we must not lose the philosophy that started our profession. The philosophy is the foun-dation of our profession. I recall also at a Parker seminar that an osteopath named Fred Lorenz spoke and his message was very clear, “hold on to your drugless philosophy as that is the very thing we gave up and was the demise of our profession” He had stated the number of osteopathic schools in the United States had dropped by over 80 per cent five years after the inclusion of drugs and minor surgery into their profession. He also stated that they were now a profession in “limbo” as they had “sold out.” One also must think of the malprac-tice premium increase our profession will have if we include drugs into our profession. Is that what we want? There might be an increase in the length of the school term to incorporate this into the curriculum. Is that what we want? Do you think the medical profession will be happy once chiropractors start prescribing? They will fight that tooth and nail – and I don’t blame them as we don’t want them adjusting spines, DR. ED LUBBERDINK has been a chiropractor in the same location for 35 years. He has three chiropractic associates, four massage therapists and a naturopath on his team. Lubberdink has attended over 100 post-graduate seminars to stay current and inspired. The clinic focus is certainly on wellness. 18 Canadian Chiropractor December 2017 either. So why would they want us prescribing medications? Every profession has a philosophy. It is best to stick with it rather than trying to become a jack-of-all-trades. That is why we have an acupuncturist in our office, a nautropath, RMTs and soon, a physiotherapist. The four chiroprac-tors in our office practice chiropractic, i.e. adjusting of the spine. We are all busy and happy. I realize in smaller towns you might not be able to hire one of these other professions to work in your office, but chances are that you can refer to them in your town. We were always busy enough just doing chiro-practic before we brought these other services into our office, after realizing there was a value to bringing them under one roof. This leads me to my next point: Why www.canadianchiropractor.ca
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