FEATURE SURVEY RESULTS NET ANNUAL EARNINGS IN 2018 $10,000 to $24,999 5% $25,000 to $49,999 9% $50,000 to $74,999 16% $75,000 to $99,999 19% $100,000 to $124,999 17% $125,000 to $149,999 7% $150,000 and up 25% to become second-rate MDs? I’m in agreement about expanding our scope of practice to include limited prescription rights and lab testing, but feel as though many chiropractors (including myself) would benefit from additional training regarding these privileges. Also, these expanded roles would need to be closely monitored for several months or years to ensure they were not being abused. • Chiropractors seem to always miss the point that “prescription rights” also means the ability to talk about medications with patients. If we had this in our scope of practice, we could have legitimate, above-the-board conversations with patients and their other healthcare professionals. The “chiropractors will just start prescribing drugs and stop adjusting” arguments are orthodoxical scaremongering. This year we asked questions concerning the areas of CBD/cannabis, seeing as it has was approved for sale in the country in October of last year. Edibles and drinkables are on track to go on sale in October of this year. (Although it looks like Quebec is opting out.) It seems chiropractors in Canada are interested to learn more about what’s happening with research surrounding cannabis (“it would be helpful to have some education on the subject”), although many com-mented it shouldn’t be mandatory. But, there’s interest there. As one chiropractor said “It’s our responsibility to know about cannabis just as much as we need to know about pain, anti-inflammatory, and muscle relaxing drugs.” For the fourth year running, low trust level from the pub-lic was once again selected as the biggest challenge to the profession (22%), followed closely by “other” (21%) where DCs listed a variety of gripes. This year, “high cost of run-ning my practice” slid into third-place as the biggest chal-lenge. Some of the gripes listed in the “other” category were also within the answer choices, but this question always elicits additional commentary. Mostly chiros were comment-ing on the in-fighting and “internal attacks” with the pro-fession. A few said it’s these reasons specifically why there’s a low trust level from the public or medical community and bad PR/public perception. There was a lot of concern as well that the pure MSK focus is a danger to the profession in that the public sees chiropractors as “glorified physiothera-pists.” One DC said that for the public, there is a “lack of understanding about how [chiropractors] can help.” • SCOPE OF PRACTICE Are you in favour of the move to expand the scope of practice to allow for limited prescription rights? 2017 YES 49% NO 37% NOT SURE/NEED MORE INFO 14% 2018 YES 47% NO 38% UNSURE/NEED MORE INFO 15% 2019 YES 40% NO 44% UNSURE/NEED MORE INFO 16% “YES” • With the diverse philosophy within the profession, it’s chal-lenging to keep everyone happy and still maintain a unified profession. • We need to weed out the “bad apples” that create a negative image of profession through unethical and unprofessional practice styles and behaviour regardless of their philosophy. Also, keep truly vitalistic/philosophical chiropractors within scope of practice to better unify the profession around what we all do versus what we disagree on. • Focused marketing and integration with hospital services. • This is much better than 15 years ago! I think both [associa-tions] are doing well…but it’s a big mountain to move. “NO” • There has been no increase in the percentage of the public using chiropractic services. • National and provincial associations are not on the same page – cause division. • They are promoting a narrowing of the public understanding of chiropractic and in-fighting within the profession. [They] appear to be branding us as purley MSK, which makes us no different than RMTs, physios, etc. • Media presence has been slim to none and there is barely any communication with associations except for elections and awards. There is no public media presence for chiropractic…. “SO-SO” • I’m moderately satisfied. The effort is fine but misguided in terms of “pain focused” messaging. I’ve been told for 27 years that the messaging has to be back pain to bring patients in and I still don’t buy it. I would much prefer our marketing be about the nerve system optimization and improving health expression. • I think I pay them a lot of money for random campaigns that only chiropractors end up seeing. • They are doing as much as they can with the resources they have. • It can always be better: Evident by the low public utilization rate. www.canadianchiropractor.ca SATISFACTION WITH ASSOCIATIONS New this year, Canadian Chiropractor asked a new open-ended question to survey respondents: Do you believe the provincial and national associations are doing enough to support the profession in Canada? Why or why not? Over half (55%) said “no,” 32% said “yes,” while 13% were unsure, or felt “so-so” about their efforts. Below are a few of your responses. Would you agree with the consensus? 18 Canadian Chiropractor September 2019
Chiropractic + Naturopathic Doctor September 2019: Page 18
