The Organization Is Going To Hurt You

Joe* emails: If I say provocative things about work, I can be sued. Frankly, you probably should have waited until you got the degree in hand before writing controversial things, but then, that’s you. You should discuss with… what to do. Perhaps you can offer to remove the problematic passages and promise to not write troubling passages about AT anymore. Its the real world, you can say what you want about religions, etc, since you aren’t employed by them, but when you take on professional programs where people have financial interests at stake, they can opt to shut you out. I think you should have this discussion soon, as it sounds like “the organization” is going to hurt you.

It always looks better to be certified. There’s no honor in not being certified, so if there is a way to be on good terms with your supervisory body, its probably worthwhile professionally. You can’t make a living only treating your friends, there will need to be referrals, etc, and frankly, if someone in LA is thinking of using you, and sees all the stuff you wrote (there was one particularly dangerous thing you wrote once, not that long ago about treating women), they might reconsider. I mean, I’m talking as a health professional. If I have to refer a patient to someone, I don’t want them coming back angry at me for referring them to someone questionable. Having a clean web presence (at least with regard to your practice) is the contemporary equivalent of having a clean office. So it might not be bad for you professionally, and a good exercise for you mentally, to try to fix your relationship with the governing body, and for once not be on the fringe and an outlaw. If you are going to be a challenging figure in your field, let it be for something worthwhile and novel rather than just “funny” comments on the internet. Most of us have learned to separate our personal lives from our professional lives much earlier in the game, and its a good thing. Those who don’t are the Gafnis, etc, of this world who can’t remove their personal issues from the professional sphere. After all, AT is essentially a medical subspecialty, grouped under rehab.

Now what you may be feeling is something I often discuss with residents and fellows, that is, they often know that they know the material, etc, but feel funny “being a doctor”, and that sometimes leads them to make self deprecating or “funny” comments in the patient room, which ends up in turn causing a loss of confidence in the physician, and a cycle of dysfunction. We have all been there (I just saw a fellow do that on one of my recent trips, and I recall doing that early in my career). You don’t want to be there, you are at a point in life where you would normally be a mentor to others, honestly. So you have to doubly transform yourself into a serious practitioner, or realize that you will never build a practice. No one wants to pay for a non-respected practitioner, when there are competitors around, one always wants “the best”, and in LA there’s a lot of choice for the dollar, chiropractors, certified rehab specialists, sports physicians, etc. These are things you need to really consider if this is what you are going to “do” for a living. You can’t hang out a shingle and say but really I want to write plays, etc. People don’t pay for health care as a favor to the practitioner, they have to believe in you. And it is an important part of the treatment, people need to believe that by coming to you they will somehow be better than before they saw you. You don’t really project that right now, and you need to if you wish to actually do this.

So I think the adult thing and professional thing to do is go back to the…, say you want to do the right thing, what can you do to be a welcome member of the profession, and do it. You can still blog about other things, but don’t bite the proverbial hand, particularly if it is your own hand you are biting.