Posted on 01/01/2005 7:13:21 AM PST by aculeus
Some threaten to resign over the proposed school.
A growing number of professors in the Florida State University College of Medicine are saying they will resign if FSU administrators continue to pursue a proposed chiropractic school.
"I would no longer wish to volunteer my teaching energies to FSU medical school, should it encompass a school of chiropractic," wrote Dr. Ian Rogers, an assistant professor at FSU's Pensacola campus, in a Dec. 15 e-mail. "This is plainly ludicrous!!!!"
The threatened resignations - at least seven to date, all from assistant professors who work part time - reflect a belief among many in the medical establishment that chiropractic is a "pseudo-science" that leads to unnecessary and sometimes harmful treatments. Professors are even circulating a parody map of campus that places a fictional Bigfoot Institute, School of Astrology and Crop Circle Simulation Laboratory near a future chiropractic school.
But the professors' stance has a political aim, too.
Opposition is clearly mounting as the chiropractic school heads for crucial votes in January before the FSU board of trustees and the state Board of Governors.
In fact, the school is now seen as a test case for the fledgling Board of Governors, which critics have accused of kowtowing to Gov. Jeb Bush and the Legislature on the higher education issues it is supposed to oversee.
FSU was closed for the holidays Tuesday. FSU president T.K. Wetherell, provost Larry Abele and John Thrasher, chairman of the FSU board of trustees, could not be reached for comment.
But Sen. Dennis Jones, the Treasure Island Republican who spearheaded legislative support for the school in the spring, said the professors were "overreacting."
He accused anti-chiropractic groups from outside the state of stirring faculty opposition at FSU.
"If they resign, so be it," said Jones, a chiropractor himself. The instructors don't deserve to teach at FSU, he said, "if they're putting their credentials with people known for promoting professional bigotry."
The Legislature appropriated $9-million annually for the chiropractic school, which was pushed by Jones and then-Senate President Jim King, R-Jacksonville, an FSU graduate. It would be the only school of its kind in the country.
As supporters envision it, more than 100 new faculty members would train legions of chiropractors, with a special emphasis on Hispanic and African-American students. The school would also draw lucrative federal grants in alternative medicine.
Planning began years ago, but criticism didn't ramp up until after the legislative session.
Some opponents see the school as an end run around the Board of Governors, which oversees the state's 11 universities but has yet to consider the chiropractic school. Last week, a group headed by former university system chancellor E.T. York filed a lawsuit against the board, accusing it of failing to flex its constitutionally granted muscle and pointing to the chiropractic school as a prime example.
But some FSU faculty members are upset, too, fearing the school will shatter FSU's academic reputation. The list of critics include FSU's two Nobel laureates - Robert Schreiffer, a physicist, and Harold Walter Kroto, a chemist - and Robert Holton, the chemistry professor who developed the cancer-fighting drug Taxol, which has brought FSU tens of millions of dollars in royalties.
In recent weeks, more than 500 faculty members have signed petitions against the chiropractic school, including about 70 in the medical college, said Dr. Raymond Bellamy, an assistant professor who is leading the charge against the proposal. The medical college has more than 100 faculty members.
Some of them say they're willing to do more than sign a petition.
"I teach wonderful medical students from Florida State University here in Orlando," Dr. James W. Louttit wrote in an e-mail to Bellamy, who shared it with the St. Petersburg Times. "If they decide to start a chiropractic school I would no longer be able to support this program."
"It should come as no surprise that no major medical institution in this country, public or private, has embraced chiropractic medicine," wrote Dr. Henry Ho, a Winter Park physician and FSU assistant professor, in another e-mail. "If Florida State University were to do so, its fledgling attempt for credibility as a medical institution of stature would be severely jeopardized."
The situation at FSU isn't the first time chiropractors have sought to tie themselves to an established university.
In the late 1990s, faculty at York University in Toronto - one of Canada's largest schools - considered plans to affiliate with Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College. The plan would have brought York millions of dollars in new facilities and donations and given the chiropractic school academic credibility.
After a bitter, years-long fight, York faculty narrowly vetoed the plan in 2001.
At FSU, faculty have not officially voiced their concerns about the chiropractic school. Bellamy said they fear retaliation from lawmakers if they do.
"Everybody wants somebody else to kill it," he said.
Ron Matus can be reached at 727 893-8873 or
matus@sptimes.com
© Copyright 2003 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved
It's all about protecting their income. Nothing more.
Regular or decaffinated, and would that be with cream and sugar?
Needless to say; these bozos will "resign" the same day that disenfranchised liberals book their one-way airline flights out of the United States. Don't hold your breath...these crybabies know where their bread is buttered.
Good for you. Some short-sighted folks on this thread think like this:
One bad chiroprator = All bad chiropractors
Why not apply this logic to all facets of life?
One bad steak = All bad steaks
One bad car = All bad cars
Some with bad chiropractic experiences are the victims of charlatanism. Others refuse to take ownership of their own health care. If you go to a chiropractor and tell him that you don't believe that he can fix your high cholesterol and that you'd like him to fix the crick in your neck, thank you very much, most are willing to comply.
Chiroprators specialize in fixing your frame. Nothing more. Sheesh.
I don't know much about chiropractice, but my gut feeling is to kind of agree with the profs on this. However, my gut feeling also tells me that chiropractice(y?) is lots less harmful than the socialist and PC venom that most universities teach today.
The little satirical map could show a school of socialism, only it would hardly be satire.
"And of course we all know that these things would NEVER happen with regular M.D.s"
Well, with MD's you might get a quack, with a chiropractor, you definitely will..... Chiropractors are like calling Ms. Cleo.....and requires an a priori belief in the person you are seeing - and people will swear by them - therefore it's easy to convince them they are cured.......but only until their next "adjustment".
The worst thing, I suppose, would be a cultural Marxist professor of sociology with no medical training presuming to perform procedures on one's spine. Double whammy.
"The school would also draw lucrative federal grants in alternative medicine."
For those who fight the waste of taxpayers money, here is a large stationary target. The government has a "Center for the Study" of this crap, a complete fraud perpetrated by, anong others, tinfoil-hatter Tom Harkin of the Senate.
Couldn't agree more.
I have to tell you that chiropractic treatment DID help my daughter afflicted with asthma, when it became apparent that her ribs were not in alignment with her spinal column. When the chiropractor popped them back into place, my daughter's breathing capacity went up about 15%.
Chiropractic also helps me with my muscle/skeletal tension headaches. I know for a FACT that when a particular disc is out of alignment in my spine I get searing headaches. As soon as it's popped back into place, the headache disappears. I'm a believer.
I agree. The D.O.'s are real doctors who can identify and treat diseases using the whole armamentarium of modern medicine.
They have all had some exposure to chiropractic-style manipulation, and some of them continue to practice it, with a much sounder perspective and scope of practice than the chiropractors.
The "hard" chiropractors who believe you can cure everything from asthma to AIDS with chiropractic are only one step above homeopaths and crystal therapists in the hierarchy of fraudulent quackery.
As long as manipulation is confined to areas where it has demonstrated scientific proof of efficacy (i.e. musculoskeletal pain), it is fine and helpful. I dare say the time may come when allopathic (M.D.) students learn some of these techniques for treating chronic lower back pain.
-ccm
Our family Doctor is an O.D. as opposed to M.D. and he does manipulations the same as a chiropractor. I have never needed it done, but my wife has it done occasionally for neck pain. Years ago, a surgeon told her she had bone spurs in her vertebra and would need to have her neck fused and she would just have to live with the pain until then.
The OD looked at the x-rays and said nonsense. He put her on the table and manipulated her neck and the pain was gone immediately. It lasted for a few years until she needed manipulated again.
It works.
I have read many of the comments here, and I am willing to bet that the most vociferous critics of Chiropractors fall into one of three categories:
a) Never been treated by a Chiropractor
b) Been treated by a disreputable/untrained Chiropractor
c) Are a bigoted medical professional
d) Have no idea what a Chriopractor should treat/is capable of treating
I have worked in Radiology for nearly 20 years, seen all aspects of it in various hospitals. I had nearly intractable back pain (due to a football injury in high school) that dogged me for my entire adult life.
I had constant pain, and occasional flare-ups that left me bedridden for two or three days, and at limited mobility for several weeks after. I had CT scans. I had Xrays. I had MRI exams. I had phyical therapy. I had massage treatment. NOTHING helped. The best the medical community could offer (short of surgery) had proven to be no help at all. And they would not operate unless some kind of dysfunction could be identified by a diagnostic test, which was fine by me. I didn't want someone just cutting me up.
When I got married, my new wife, after watching the second or third disabling attack, suggested I try a chiropracter (She is an RN who spent her entire career in critical care nursing)
My first reaction was that of most posters on this thread. But I went to a chiropractor out of desperation, and my life has changed dramatically since then.
I was treated by a chiropractor for several years where I went on a nearly weekly basis, and when my back was problematic, I had two go in sometimes three times a week.
I learned a lot about what a properly trained and certified chiropractor can do, and as a radiologic professional, I viewed it all with a critical eye. To be honest, the basic presumption of alignment makes sense to me. I do not know why some other aspects of the practice work as well as it does, but the bottom line is:
If a qualified, trained chiropractor is treating an APPROPRIATE condition in tandem with conventional medical treatment to rule out more serious conditions that may exclude chriopractic as an appropriate treatment, the Chriopractic can help patients (like me) for whom conventional medicine has failed miserably.
Additionally, I may have been fortunate to use these services in Massachusetts, which is much stricter in its oversight than many other states. I bitch about living here occassionally, but they do some things right every once in a while.
If you think it is great fun to poke at and ridicule a profession that has helped many people (in my case, dramatically) that have been abandoned by the conventional medical community (and that is basically what we have done to these people) then you should put yourself in their place.
Sure, it sounds nice and blithe, and provokes a laugh from equally ignorant or unafflicted people, but good chiropractic care is no laughing matter if you have been left behind by conventional medicine.
And one more thing: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts pays for Chiropractic care, in most cases. Do you think for one second they would part with even the smallest bit of brass if they were not shown that Chiropractic produces results in many patients? We may not know EXACTLY why those results are produced, but empirically, it works.
Hate to burst your bubble...I was in serious pain from a pinched nerve...painful to the point where I was having trouble using a computer keyboard. A few visits to the chiropractor ELIMINATED the pain. This was several years ago, and I was NEVER pursued for additional "adjustments" once the situation was resolved. End of story. Are some crackpots? No doubt, but you'll find charlatans, crackpots, and outright thieves in EVERY field.
Also, read post #74.
Hmm, sounds fishy. Do you get the "happy ending" as well? I think I've seen this kind of massage parlor in a double-wide on the other side of the railroad tracks...
-ccm
I'm pretty surprised by the blanket condemnations here. I have nothing but good things to say about the two chiropractors I have visited. Both treated the problem I went in for (successfully) after medical doctors had 1) sent me off for pain killers and 2) suggested I knock off playing racquetball. And in both cases I had only a couple of appointments.
I know some of them are interested in nothing but signing you up for a lifetime of appointments and figuring out how to charge your insurance company...sort of like medical doctors :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.