Putting The Stroke Issue to Bed

It's like Dr. Clum said, to the patient, he or she may not know what's going on, and we do this every day. From the doctor's point of view, we have to be prepared to be a little more consistent, I think, with our explanation to the patient of why we do what we do in a careful manner. The patients really don't care sometimes how much we, they just want to know that we care. The more caring that we can show from a practicing physician's point of view, the better off we're going to be. I will tell you a personal experience that just happened two weeks ago. I know many of you know that I recently have had a heart attack with quad bypass surgery. I have to go to the hospital for cardiac rehab, so I'm on my treadmill in my cardiac rehab class. I have two ladies to my right. I have three gentlemen to my left, and I have three people in front of me. The person in charge of rehab comes up to me and says, and this was just two weeks ago, that her husband used to play baseball with another gentleman in West Virginia, and his wife, who is 34 years old went to a chiropractor in West Virginia, and got adjusted and stroked out on the table. She goes, "Is this common and how do you explain that?" Then she said, "What are the statistics?" Now, that is out in the open. I basically have eight other people listening. I'm on the treadmill, and believe me, I wasn't prepared for that question until she said that, so then I told her that the incident rate is much lower for what we do than where we are in the hospital for the quad bypass that every one of us had. It's lower than of course all the meds that we're taking after the quad bypass surgeries, and there was eight other people there that had the same procedure. Again, I wanted to reassure them that I gave them a quick statistic and I said there's many different authorities, but the most important thing is to give the doctor of chiropractic the opportunity to do everything that he or she does in a careful manner to show that the incident is really not going to take place if they do what's going to be considered the standards of care and practice. I reiterated the history, the exam, the x-rays, the report showing them or trying to show this person that asked me the question, along with the now eight people listening, and by this time, I've got four other people that have joined around my treadmill, wanted to hear this. I think once the questions raised in a public setting, we have to be very cognizant of what is going on. We have to be, of course. These people, in most cases, none of these people have even been to a chiropractor. They're not having the procedure. They're just making the inquiry. I will tell you the byproduct that took place is that after I did my explanation, I did have three other people call the office who became patients because they said that even though they were having these problems after the quad bypass surgery, they were willing basically to try a chiropractic adjustment just because of how I answered the question. I think the doctor has to show he or she is concerned and that we have to give the proper statistics, but then make all the procedures up to the procedure, do exactly what we've learned in school and forms that we've utilized. I think the ChiroSecure company does an outstanding job with providing information and the forms for informed consent, so I want to applaud them. Thanks, Ken. That was terrific because that's exactly what this show is about today. We started with Bill because he is a communications expert and someone that I look up to as a fried and a mentor as part of this profession because he's as much a doctor as any

Dr. Hoffman:

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