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Are You The Doctor, Doctor?: The Philosophy of Successful Practice
Book by Fred H. Barge
157 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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October 8, 2024
Be the Doctor, Doctor.
A doctor without belief and understanding of the depth of his own science cannot teach others.
First, last, and in the midst of all, you should, as a man and as a physician found your expectations of success on your personal and scientific qualifications, and keep whatever is honest, whatever is true, whatever is just, and whatever is pure, foremost in your mind and be governed by it. If you do not, you will not deserve to succeed in the honorable profession of medicine, and no honest man can wish you success.
Life is a road and Success is the destination. There are good roads and bad roads, highways and rough wagon paths. He who keeps on the highway and follows the road signs, reaches the end of the journey quickly and easily. He avoids the bumps and the detours, he saves expense and worry and, when the trip is over, he is happy and contented. The wise traveler uses a guide book and takes advantage of all the shortcuts. He follows the advice of those who have traveled the road before him and who had to feel their way through uncharted thoroughfares.
The body has innate healing abilities. Healing comes from inside, not outside. It is simply the body’s natural attempt to restore equilibrium when equilibrium is lost. Healing cannot be prevented from occurring (though it can be obstructed in its expression), nor can it be obtained from anyone or anything external. You are born with the power to heal because healing is an innate capacity of every person, as it is of every animal and plant, and, I suspect, of every created thing. Listen to sick people and you will hear much talk of seeking cures, healers, and healing. medicines and medicine men can sometimes catalyze a healing response or remove obstructions to it, but they never give you what you do not already have. The power to heal is your property and birthright, ready to go to work whenever changing conditions create a demand for it. [Yes, the power to heal is everyone’s birthright, and chiropractors recognize the fact. We neither treat nor heal; we only eliminate an obstacle to Innate’s healing expression, the vertebral subluxation.]
- Dr Weil: This principle suggests other ways of thinking about prevention and treatment than those predominant in conventional medicine. Rather than warring on disease agents with hope (vain, I suspect) of eliminating them, we ought to worry more about strengthening resistance to them and learning to live in balance with them more of the time.
A good doctor must not lack compassion, he must not make light f pain, but he must make pain lighter to bear. Patients must be taught that pain is a normal response to a body problem. We are not meant to be pain free. Today’s penchant for painkilling drugs (fostered by medicine) has led to a generation of people who expect to live pain free. You must teach them not to cover up pain. Calling aspirin the ‘little killer,’ I often say to the patient, “I wonder how many strokes and heart attacks are caused by aspirin?” “What do you mean, Doctor?” “Well, I just wonder how many times a person will be doing something, like raking the lawn, get a headache and go take a couple aspirin and then continue raking… only to have a stroke? Or for instance, straining at work and feeling chest pain, take a couple of aspirin, go back to work and have a heart attack? One should never turn off pain and then continue activity. If the activity created the pain, that was nature’s warning, nature’s burglar alarm. You wouldn’t install a burglar alarm in your house and then put cotton under the bell clapper would you? Certainly not! If your faucet was dripping you wouldn’t just put a sponge under it just so you couldn’t hear it drip, now would you? Then why should you turn off pain, drug your entire body for, say, a right arm pain. Do you think that the aspirin only goes into your right arm? No, it goes into the entire body. Aspirin simply covers up pain. For instance, it doesn’t heal a sore throat now does it? But you can’t feel the sore throat after taking an aspirin; that’s what aspirin does, it covers up the pain, but it affects the entire body!” Are you the Doctor, Doctor? You must teach. “Your backache is most likely due to your spine being out of line, now you wouldn’t put something in the gas tank of yoru car to straighten the frame would you?”
When the body malfunctions look well to the spine for the cause of the problem. For instance, my example of the trick knee under structural disorders. If the knee subluxates and locks it can be adjusted into line, but frequently this becomes a common occurrence and the patient may relate, “Just walking down the street my knee will go out.” The cause may well be in the lumbar spine. Nerve encroachment from a lumbar subluxation can cause neuro-muscular in coordination and thus the so-called trick knee. In my opinion the problem is frequently a lumbar subluxation and spina adjustment will often solve the problem. Certainly this conservative treatment should be considered before knee surgery. Many of the disease conditions known to man are nothing more than bodily malfunctions. Aberrations in nerve function can affect the entire human system and stem purely from vertebral subluxations.
Chiropractic has an answer for all of this. You see 31 pairs of nerves emit from the spine. When you came to me the nerve pressure in your spine bothered your right leg.. you had sciatica, but wherever nerves are interfered with along the spine there can be a weakness and where this weakness exists there can be problems, especially under stress. You see, stress overloads the body’s nervous system and wherever the weakness exists the problems are felt. Through little junction boxes along the spine the spinal nerves can influence all of the organs of the human system.
Look well to yourself for the cause of your problems. When problems arise in your practice, and in life for that matter, it is always good to first reflect on oneself.
Chiropractors work with the cause not the symptoms of disease, and there is truly only one cause not the symptoms of disease, and there is truly only one cause and one cure in disease. The cause? The body’s inability to comprehend itself and/or its environment. The cure? The body’s own ability to heal itself. There is only one thing any doctor can do for a patient and that is to remove an obstacle (obstruction) to healing. When a surgeon’s knife removes a tumorous mass from a patient’s body, does that heal the body? Certainly not, but most certainly it does remove an obstacle to healing. When a medical physician applies an antibiotic to an infected wound, does it heal the wound? Again the answer is no, it merely has removed an obstacle to healing. When a psychiatrist or a psychologist works with a patient’s mind to relieve stress does that heal the body? Most certainly not he has freed the patient’s body from an obstacle to healing. The same query can be asked of chiropractic. When a chiropractor adjusts and corrects a subluxation does that heal the body? And again the answer is no, but our answer has always been no! The vertebral adjustment does not heal, it only releases the innate force which performs its healing wonders in proportion t the body’s capabilities. So in this same sense we, too, only remove an obstacle to healing.
Dr. Andrew: Healing comes from inside, not outside. Healing cannot be prevented from occurring (though it can be obstructed in its expression), nor can it be obtained from anyone or anything external. You are born with the power to heal because healing is an innate capacity of every person, as it is of every animal and plant, and, I suspect, of every created thing.
A doctor without belief and understanding of the depth of his own science cannot teach others.
First, last, and in the midst of all, you should, as a man and as a physician found your expectations of success on your personal and scientific qualifications, and keep whatever is honest, whatever is true, whatever is just, and whatever is pure, foremost in your mind and be governed by it. If you do not, you will not deserve to succeed in the honorable profession of medicine, and no honest man can wish you success.
Life is a road and Success is the destination. There are good roads and bad roads, highways and rough wagon paths. He who keeps on the highway and follows the road signs, reaches the end of the journey quickly and easily. He avoids the bumps and the detours, he saves expense and worry and, when the trip is over, he is happy and contented. The wise traveler uses a guide book and takes advantage of all the shortcuts. He follows the advice of those who have traveled the road before him and who had to feel their way through uncharted thoroughfares.
The body has innate healing abilities. Healing comes from inside, not outside. It is simply the body’s natural attempt to restore equilibrium when equilibrium is lost. Healing cannot be prevented from occurring (though it can be obstructed in its expression), nor can it be obtained from anyone or anything external. You are born with the power to heal because healing is an innate capacity of every person, as it is of every animal and plant, and, I suspect, of every created thing. Listen to sick people and you will hear much talk of seeking cures, healers, and healing. medicines and medicine men can sometimes catalyze a healing response or remove obstructions to it, but they never give you what you do not already have. The power to heal is your property and birthright, ready to go to work whenever changing conditions create a demand for it. [Yes, the power to heal is everyone’s birthright, and chiropractors recognize the fact. We neither treat nor heal; we only eliminate an obstacle to Innate’s healing expression, the vertebral subluxation.]
- Dr Weil: This principle suggests other ways of thinking about prevention and treatment than those predominant in conventional medicine. Rather than warring on disease agents with hope (vain, I suspect) of eliminating them, we ought to worry more about strengthening resistance to them and learning to live in balance with them more of the time.
A good doctor must not lack compassion, he must not make light f pain, but he must make pain lighter to bear. Patients must be taught that pain is a normal response to a body problem. We are not meant to be pain free. Today’s penchant for painkilling drugs (fostered by medicine) has led to a generation of people who expect to live pain free. You must teach them not to cover up pain. Calling aspirin the ‘little killer,’ I often say to the patient, “I wonder how many strokes and heart attacks are caused by aspirin?” “What do you mean, Doctor?” “Well, I just wonder how many times a person will be doing something, like raking the lawn, get a headache and go take a couple aspirin and then continue raking… only to have a stroke? Or for instance, straining at work and feeling chest pain, take a couple of aspirin, go back to work and have a heart attack? One should never turn off pain and then continue activity. If the activity created the pain, that was nature’s warning, nature’s burglar alarm. You wouldn’t install a burglar alarm in your house and then put cotton under the bell clapper would you? Certainly not! If your faucet was dripping you wouldn’t just put a sponge under it just so you couldn’t hear it drip, now would you? Then why should you turn off pain, drug your entire body for, say, a right arm pain. Do you think that the aspirin only goes into your right arm? No, it goes into the entire body. Aspirin simply covers up pain. For instance, it doesn’t heal a sore throat now does it? But you can’t feel the sore throat after taking an aspirin; that’s what aspirin does, it covers up the pain, but it affects the entire body!” Are you the Doctor, Doctor? You must teach. “Your backache is most likely due to your spine being out of line, now you wouldn’t put something in the gas tank of yoru car to straighten the frame would you?”
When the body malfunctions look well to the spine for the cause of the problem. For instance, my example of the trick knee under structural disorders. If the knee subluxates and locks it can be adjusted into line, but frequently this becomes a common occurrence and the patient may relate, “Just walking down the street my knee will go out.” The cause may well be in the lumbar spine. Nerve encroachment from a lumbar subluxation can cause neuro-muscular in coordination and thus the so-called trick knee. In my opinion the problem is frequently a lumbar subluxation and spina adjustment will often solve the problem. Certainly this conservative treatment should be considered before knee surgery. Many of the disease conditions known to man are nothing more than bodily malfunctions. Aberrations in nerve function can affect the entire human system and stem purely from vertebral subluxations.
Chiropractic has an answer for all of this. You see 31 pairs of nerves emit from the spine. When you came to me the nerve pressure in your spine bothered your right leg.. you had sciatica, but wherever nerves are interfered with along the spine there can be a weakness and where this weakness exists there can be problems, especially under stress. You see, stress overloads the body’s nervous system and wherever the weakness exists the problems are felt. Through little junction boxes along the spine the spinal nerves can influence all of the organs of the human system.
Look well to yourself for the cause of your problems. When problems arise in your practice, and in life for that matter, it is always good to first reflect on oneself.
Chiropractors work with the cause not the symptoms of disease, and there is truly only one cause not the symptoms of disease, and there is truly only one cause and one cure in disease. The cause? The body’s inability to comprehend itself and/or its environment. The cure? The body’s own ability to heal itself. There is only one thing any doctor can do for a patient and that is to remove an obstacle (obstruction) to healing. When a surgeon’s knife removes a tumorous mass from a patient’s body, does that heal the body? Certainly not, but most certainly it does remove an obstacle to healing. When a medical physician applies an antibiotic to an infected wound, does it heal the wound? Again the answer is no, it merely has removed an obstacle to healing. When a psychiatrist or a psychologist works with a patient’s mind to relieve stress does that heal the body? Most certainly not he has freed the patient’s body from an obstacle to healing. The same query can be asked of chiropractic. When a chiropractor adjusts and corrects a subluxation does that heal the body? And again the answer is no, but our answer has always been no! The vertebral adjustment does not heal, it only releases the innate force which performs its healing wonders in proportion t the body’s capabilities. So in this same sense we, too, only remove an obstacle to healing.
Dr. Andrew: Healing comes from inside, not outside. Healing cannot be prevented from occurring (though it can be obstructed in its expression), nor can it be obtained from anyone or anything external. You are born with the power to heal because healing is an innate capacity of every person, as it is of every animal and plant, and, I suspect, of every created thing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 12, 2025
“Our approach has been singular, as chiropractors work with the cause not the symptoms of disease, and there is truly only one cause and one cure in disease. The cause? The body’s inability to comprehend itself and/or its environment. The cure? The body’s own ability to heal itself.”
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews