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
I have to say, I was very surprised when I got a referral to a chiropractor from an MD, because I know about the professional antipathy. I even queried the doctor. He told me bluntly I had pelvic displacement, hip and knee displacements, (more torn ligments than I care to remember)and my veterbrae from the waist down looked like jigsaw puzzle pieces. He just bluntly said the injuries were skeletal and that's what chiropractors do!
My mom has a dreadful back problem - she was (still is) a professional dancer and has been for 60 years. That puts a lot of strain on your back. She's had multiple laminectomies, fusions, the works. So our whole family has perforce gotten educated on this issue.
Chiropractic (from a reputable guy, not a quack) gave her temporary relief from pain, but here's the problem: your spine is supported by the ligaments that run alongside the vertebrae. Repeated frequent chiropractic adjustments stretch those ligaments, so the vertebrae are not held in place any more and fall out of alignment more easily. So you get temporary relief but you're setting yourself up for a long term problem.
On the other hand, a friend of mine who was paralyzed by polio back in the 40s began having phantom pains in his legs recently. The M.D.s couldn't do anything but throw pain pills at him, so he went to a chiropractor (and this is a guy who has condemned all chiros as quacks his whole life long.) He said, "I still think they're quacks, but I don't hurt any more."
I think careful occasional use (after using a conventional neurologist/orthopedist to rule out serious problems - which is probably what happened to your dad) is probably o.k. But the auto accident/3x week adjustments are a prescription for dependency and disaster.
I have met a couple who were experts on many other subjects, as well. All Subjects.
I met them socially, not professionally. If I want Physical Therapy, I will stick to mainstream medicine. There are some really goofy beliefs floated by many of them. The ones I met were really offended by my pronounciation of their "profession" as "Pyroquacktic".
I can buy a Quartz Healing Crystal for the same price as one of their office visits- And THAT cures cancer, bilious humours, phlegmatic complaints, ague, scrofula, and plague, too.
A good, well trained chiropractor will not perform any adjustment on a patient until they have performed a complete physical exam, and in most (if not all cases) taken an xray to rule out conditions that might preclude chiropractic treatment.
RFEngineer, the only point that was proved was that you were associating with a poorly/untrained chiropractor who was no better than a quack.
If we were to take the implications of this thread, because you were helping him fix his computer, you were aiding and abetting him in his fraudulent billing. (I'm just being polemic here, it seems to fit this thread)
So, the Chiropractor did the RIGHT thing by sending the guy to a surgeon with his torn Achilles tendon? How does that reflect badly on him? (And I am sure this was all pre-HIPPA days...)
Gee, your description sounds like a lot of MEDICAL DOCTORS I have met in the workplace!
They give you lots of that, "get up and go" feeling.
And that clearly includes conventional medicine.
Many people (like some who post to this thread) still have the Doctor-God complex.
Let me tell you. Anyone can graduate from Medical School. You don't have to be God, and you don't have to be brilliant, or even exceptionally smart. But you do have to work hard, and you do have to be determined.
They have a saying: "50% of the doctors graduate in the lower half of their class."
That is, someone has to be at the bottom. Some doctors are better than others, and the same case goes with any profession, including chiropractic.
Must be your first chiro-related thread. ;)
You should check out the flame-wars on an Atkins diet thread. Those are fun too.
Regular or decaffinated, and would that be with cream and sugar?
Latte Grande - Coming soon to a Starbucks near you!
Yuck!
Not long ago, "modern" medicine did not believe that a virus could live inside the human stomach and cause ulcers. Currently, "modern" medicine believes that most schoolage boys are inflicted with something called ADD or ADHD and require regular doses of anphetamines. This "disease" is most prevalent within the environs of "modern" medicine in the U.S.
Don't be so quick to label others as quacks when your own profession's history is littered with what would now acknowledged as quackery.
More like "sit down and go". But they are good to the last "drop". ;)
Chiropractors do not get the same medical education as DO's or MD's!! However I think that chiropractors do a genuine service and belong at a university. It is more similar to physical therapy.
Ah yes. I was looking for it even before I read your post.
They were at least partially honest. The truly honorable thing for them to do, having realized that Chiropractic, as a science-based medical treatment, is a fraud, would be to chuck their Chiropractic Diplomas in the dumpster along with the rest of the worthless diplomas from places like Hamilton University, and go get a certificate in physical therapy.
But to call themselves "doctors" is to add insult to injury.
And everything comes out all right at the end.
Happy New Year Doc.
Have you ever read (it's in the books and elsewhere) of vertebral artery tear secondary to chiropractic manipulation of the cervical spine? Get out your old Gray;s and review.
Not true. The beginning semesters of preclinical classwork in chiropractic school are practically the same as in medical school: Gross Anatomy, Biochem, etc.
Here's the curriculum at New York Chiropractic College: http://www.nycc.edu/acadaffairs/dc_curriculum.pdf
After the precilincal studies prospective MD's and Chiro's branch off into their respective practical studies.
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