Quackery Comes in Various Forms

EIM blogger Carina Lowry passed along this article from MSNBC regarding an interesting chiropractic  treatment approach that requires traveling through time. On a more sombering note, a chiropractor in Michigan recently had his license suspended for manipulating 2 teenage girls' breasts presumably for their being 'out of alignment'. To be fair, fringe practices (the latter being criminal) can occur in any health care profession, including PT. Although not fair for professions to be identified with the worst amongst them, the media certainly makes doing so a tempting possibility.

John

Comments

[Ken Mailly, PT]

John;

I hope we would all agree that quackery comes in various forms. I also hope we would agree that no profession is immune from it, including our own. The ability, and will, to be self-critical is inherent in professionalism. It often seems to me, however, that too many of us interpret this to mean that individuals alone should be evaluating their own conduct. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The tenet of self-regulation within a profession means that you should be interested in my conduct, just as I have an interest in yours. I would submit that PTs prefer practice behind curtains which, while not being made of "iron", are nevertheless closed.

To put it another way; if we fear scrutiny of our practices & practice, we should take great care in criticizing others. Moreover, I would argue that tolerance of fringe practice, by any provider or profession as a whole, is a vice not a virtue.

Along these lines, I would encourage people to take a look at the article linked below, from the Science Times. It discusses a recently published paper that examines the role of punishment within communities.

From the article:
"The bottom line of the paper is that when you have people with shared standards, and some who have the moral courage to sanction others, informally, then this kind of society manages very successfully," said the study's senior author, Bettina Rockenbach, who was joined in the research by Bernd Irlenbusch, now at the London School of Economics, and Ozgur Gurek.

http://tinyurl.com/oqo4u

[Jon Newman]

I read the original article that appeared in Science and that experiment had a strong resemblance to the "work or shirk" game (ala "game theory").

I think the word punishment should be read more along the lines of "consequences" or "negative reinforcement" because often retribution is seen as the motive for punishment and in my opinion that would be unfortunate to take that stance. Also, exemplary punishment seems to me a last resort rather than a first resort.

Lastly, I can envision some situations that have the potential to become more complex when considering what "standards" are being shared and the definition of the group that shares those standards.

Ideally, isn't our profession already set up to work this way already (with the code of ethics and guide to professional conduct)?

[John Ware]

I'm reminded of a continuing ed. course I attended when I was about a year or two out of PT school. It was put on (pun intended) by the the Sharon Weiselfish group. This was a course on lumbopelvic MET. One of the course instructors had what appeard to be a bright red bruise on the white of his eye, as if a blood vessel had ruptured. He proceeded to relate to the class that this bruising appeared after he underwent some new-fangled "somatic release" technique. He then went on to tell us that his mother told him that he had had a difficult delivery and had a birth injury to the same eye!
I think the reason I remember this episode from 10 years ago so vividly is because, after the course, I got a chance to talk with this guy in an informal setting while waiting for a delayed flight. What strikes me now about him is that he seemed like such a "normal," regular guy. He didn't seem like a weirdo at all.
I'll never set foot in one of those courses again, but I agree, as a profession, we are ethically bound to at least "informally sanction" those among us who purvey obvious nonsense. I think there's more of it out there than we may care to admit. Perhaps this blog could be a forum for calling out the nonsense. You've got a "Quote of the Week (sometimes), John"- how about a regular "P.T. X-Files" episode?
John W.

[Vincent Carmellini]

Can we please add Cold Laser Therapy to that list!

[Steven L. Vanden Hoek, D.C.]

I am so embarrassed by this guy. Please accept my deepest apologies from my profession.

[Jason Silvernail]

Steven-
We've all got our crazies, as you've read there are plenty of them in PT as well.

The issue, however, is not whether we have any whackos, but rather what a profession's approach to it's whackos is. How a profession addresses practice variation within it's ranks. That's where things really get interesting.
Stay tuned.

J