A longtime colleague and friend called me a few weeks ago and told me about something that he could not believe had happened to him. He was sitting at home one night when the phone rang. When he answered it, the individual on the other end introduced herself as being part of a survey team and asked if he would be willing to participate in a short health questionnaire. Being in health care himself, my friend agreed to participate.

The interviewer proceeded to ask several questions about health care in general: "Do you or have you been to a health care professional in the past year?" "Are you taking medication and/or supplements?" "Have you ever visited a chiropractor?" "Are you currently under chiropractic care?" My friend answered "yes" to each of these questions.

After asking a few more questions, the interviewer thanked him for his participation and then, as a reward for participating, asked: "Would you like a free second opinion by a doctor of chiropractic?" My friend could not believe what he was hearing and asked the interviewer, "What did you say?" She repeated the free offer, with no obligation on his part, to find out if he was getting the "proper" chiropractic care.

When my friend called me and recounted this story, he told me:"I was so incredulous that I could not even respond in a meaningful way. I simply said, 'No, I am happy with my chiropractor and I do not need a second opinion.'"

Now let's think about this for a minute. Some local doctor of chiropractic employs a tele-marketing group to call people in their area in an attempt to solicit, or should I say steal, patients from his colleagues under the guise of participating in a health survey? I honestly thought I had seen or heard it all during my years of involvement in this profession, but I guess not.

I do not want to belabor the story; however, I hope if the doctor of chiropractic or the company that thought up this distasteful scam/scheme reads this column, they will be embarrassed enough to discontinue their charade, which only serves to discredit themselves and lower the credibility of the entire profession. The sad part of this story is that when I was discussing it with some of my colleagues, they said, "You probably should not write about it; you may give some groups an idea they had not thought of." I have more faith than that, or at least I pray that is the case!

Positive PR: The Value of a Real Second Opinion

Let's forget about the appalling and disgraceful example outline above and talk about the inherent value of a real second opinion. I recall a creative public-relations campaign developed about 30 years ago by Irvin Davis, president of Clayton Davis & Associates, the PR consultant for the ACA. The theme of the campaign was simple: It never hurts to get a second opinion. The huge difference between this campaign and the phone scam was that this second opinion campaign was designed to target folks who had never been to or had not given a thought to chiropractic care for their health needs.

If you have had back pain, neck pain, headaches (the list went on and on) and you are not improving under your current care, perhaps you should consider a "second opinion" from a doctor of chiropractic. That was the basic message in the ad campaign, along with information on the education, training, qualifications, and patient satisfaction rates of the doctor of chiropractic.

Unfortunately the campaign never got off the ground; economics, pressing priorities, and a host of other reasons caused the program to be relegated to collecting dust on the public-relations shelf. Too bad, because the campaign also mentioned that "it never hurts" to seek a second opinion; a clever twist in that pain is the single biggest reason for people seeking care.

The Perpetual Battle to Win Cultural Authority

I get comments, calls and frustrating letters from doctors of chiropractic all over the country. Quite often they are complaining about an article they have read in the mainstream news discussing a health condition for which chiropractic is clearly superior to allopathic care. The article usually doesn't mention chiropractic care or gives it lip service. The reporter generally contacts a medical doctor to get some basic information about the condition. It makes no difference whether the medical doctor knows anything about the condition or not because, like it or not, they are the undisputed authority.

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