is essential. For practitioners, philoso-phy affects how they interact with pa-tients, what they say and do. For re-searchers, philosophy affects the topics they pick and research. Philosophy of chiropractic in Canada has two leading groups; therefore, it is a dichotomy. We have two distinct phi-losophies. The first group, Vitalistic Chiropractic, supports vitalistic philos-ophy and neuromusculoskeletal (NMSK) chiropractic (“straights”). The second group, Mechanistic Chiro-practic, supports mechanistic philoso-phy and musculoskeletal (MSK) chi-ropractic (“mixers”). Ian D Coulter, Ph.D. (past president of CMCC) in his keynote speech at the 2006 Canadian National Chiropractic Convention held in Vancouver B.C., commented on the dichotomy: “Part of the challenge for chiropractic as a profession is there has always been a strong element of diversity within the pro-fession. It is sociologically interesting to ponder why this is the case. Why have these groups not been driven out or broken away to form a new profession as opposed to forming just different associations? Part of the answer might be that as a group that has been widely discriminated against on the broader health care system, chiropractors have been reluctant to dis-own, disbar members of the profession even those with which they have strong disa-greements. It might also reflect the fact that unlike medicine where a dominant paradigm (biomedicine) has characterized the pro-fession, no such standard has enjoyed such dominance in chiropractic. At least two significant paradigms have coexisted -straights and mixers. However, even within these grouping, individual chiropractors have enjoyed considerable freedom to ‘mix and match’ therapies.” To support one’s philosophy in chi-ropractic, you need science. Science is, by definition, a method of questioning the facts and looking for new and bet-ter knowledge. Science supports both vitalistic and mechanistic philosophies. Researchers are the people who focus on moving the science forward by con-ducting research. “The profession of chiropractic was traditionally built on being unique and different.” for chiropractic research. This need led to the formation of the CFSR (Cana-dian Foundation for Spinal Research) by a group of Manitoba chiropractors in November 1975. This research was the start of formalizing chiropractic research in Canada. The CFSR became a national body and rebranded as the CCRF (Canadian Chiropractic Re-search Foundation) in 1997. In 2001, the CCRF established its research chair program, placing chiropractic researchers in Canadian universities for the first time. The profession of chiropractic was traditionally built on being unique and different. Historically, our uniqueness has allowed us to survive (Wilkes trial). Many of our chiropractic researchers are now working in traditional univer-sity settings, generally in biomechani-cal, physiotherapy and medical depart-ments. When chiropractic researchers try to “fit in” and gain acceptance at the universities, they had to adjust to better fit with medicine and physio-therapy. Using common words and presenting arguments and issues in a way more familiar to these other col-leagues has forced our researchers away from traditional chiropractic words and principles. This helps the researchers as they work on joint pro-jects and try to gain recognition, grants and to be published. An aligned philos-ophy with medicine and physiotherapy helps the chiropractic researchers to get along better with other disciplines and researchers at universities and helps them better explain what chiro-practors do. It is useful for the re-searchers, but not necessarily for the chiropractic profession. For the chiro-practic profession, the loss of our lexi-con and philosophical position weakens our uniqueness and our ability to stand as a distinct profession. Dr. Greg Kawchuk was chosen to present on Canadian Chiropractic Research at the Canadian Leadership Summit sponsored by the CCA in 2015. He stated we have limited people and limited funding for chiropractic research and we had to be selective with the research we do. He noted mechanistic-based chiropractic is the priority because it will help us gain acceptance and credibility. The lack of vitalistic-based research is held up as “proof ” that traditional vitalistic chiropractic is “not scientific” and should not be utilized. However, this is a circular argument; they choose the research, focus their research in one direction, and then state this direction is correct because it has more research. Lack of research does not mean the philosophy is not credible; it means the investigation has not yet been done! Philosophy is a guiding principle, or a lens through which one views the world. It is not scientific or unscientific, but like other philosophical positions, it has or does not have science backing its tenants. In university settings, traditional chiropractic philosophy and words are generally not used, and or understood, so the researchers have changed their vocabulary and philosophy to fit in. This is a relatively small group, mainly made up of non-practicing chiropractors (researchers and educa-tors) pushing to redefine chiropractic and change the scope of the profession so that it is only based on the current science available at this time. They use the term “evidence-based care,” but this group is only in support of care proven by randomized control trial (RCT) studies. RCT studies are only one part of evidence-based care, and this focus excludes a large amount of care currently covered under the scope of chiropractors in Canada. This has power because they have a following of chiropractors that are in awe of them and their academic positions and cre-dentials. They are pushing the profes-sion and schools to move away from traditional specific chiropractic tech-niques and more to general www.canadianchiropractor.ca History of chiropractic research in Canada Throughout the history of the profes-sion, chiropractic recognizes the need 22 Canadian Chiropractor October 2019
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