Confessions of a Quackbuster

This blog deals with healthcare consumer protection, and is therefore about quackery, healthfraud, chiropractic, and other forms of so-Called "Alternative" Medicine (sCAM).

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Informed Consent ..... Chiro Style

Informed Consent ..... Chiro Style
Satire, by the Sitemaster

Now Mrs Jones, I need to get your written consent before I use the following technique on you.

This is a very controversial technique, about which there is a great deal of disagreement between chiropractors, on the one hand, and everyone else in the medical and scientific world, on the other hand. Medical doctors and Physical Therapists have ceased to use this technique, but we chiropractors refuse to do so.

First I'm going to provide you with the standard chiropractic explanation as to why I feel it is necessary to do it to you, and then I'll provide you with the scientific explanation provided by everyone else in the healthcare system. You can then make your decision based either upon a chiropractic explanation, or upon a scientific explanation.

I believe you need to have your upper cervical spine adjusted, because we chiropractors believe that this is the most important part of the spine to manipulate. Since all people have subluxations, I need to make sure that you don't have any uncorrected subluxations in that area. According to the great B.J. Palmer, the son of the founder of this great profession, adjusting the top vertebrae in the spine (he called it the HIO - Hole In One - technique) makes it unnecessary to adjust any of the other vertebrae.

Even though you are here because of a sprained ankle, and have no symptoms from your neck, I am only going to provide you with a chiropractic diagnosis and treatment. (Thus I can ignore the medical diagnosis of a sprained ankle.) By correcting your subluxations, your Innate Intelligence will be better enabled to heal your body, including your sprained ankle (which was no doubt caused by having subluxations in the first place!).

Now the scientific explanation sounds quite different, but the law obliges me to provide you with this information (which I consider to be complete nonsense).

I would like to manipulate your cervical spine for a totally unrelated condition, which can't even remotely be affected by this treatment. In other words this is a totally unnecessary treatment, which places you at a small risk of receiving a stroke. If that happens and you're lucky, you'll die, otherwise you might become a paraplegic. It is also a totally unnecessary risk, since your neck can be treated using other methods with less risk.

Now will you allow me to perform this totally unnecessary and risky technique on you? After all, I'm not called a "chiropractor" for nothing! It is my duty to perform this procedure, otherwise you won't feel you have received chiropractic treatment, and I won't feel like I'm performing up to par.

What's your answer? Will you sign on the line?

Mrs. Jones, why are you so pale? Why are you getting up and walking away? Now, NOW, there is NO need to RUN out the door!

MRS. JONES! PLEASE COME BACK! YOU HAVE UNCORRECTED SUBLUXATIONS AND ARE AT RISK OF DYING A PREMATURE DEATH!

WITHOUT MY INTERVENTION, UNIVERSAL INTELLIGENCE CANNOT COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR INNATE INTELLIGENCE, AND SUCH A BREAKDOWN IN COMMUNICATION IS UNHEALTHY! SUBLUXATIONS ARE THE ORIGINAL SIN, AND THEY MUST CONTINUALLY BE REMOVED THROUGH PARTAKING IN THE SACRAMENT OF THE CHIROPRACTIC ADJUSTMENT.

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Seriously, for more about this issue:
http://tinyurl.com/c5vb6




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