Fabrizio Mancini on December 7th, 2001

This section is compiled by Frank M. Painter, D.C.
Send all comments or additions to:    Frankp@chiro.org

Dr. Fabrizio Mancini, President of Parker Chiropractic College

DR. MANCINI: Thank you so much for this opportunity, and I want to commend you on all your efforts of this Commission.

I am here primarily to talk about two points, and the first one is the idea of the chiropractors being primary care providers. I would like to start by referring to the ACC paradigm, the Association of Chiropractic Colleges, which is a document that you have already been exposed to but a document that also has been embraced by all the leadership in chiropractic, which states that the purpose of chiropractic is to optimize health. The principle is that the body's innate recuperative powers are affected by and integrated through the nervous system and then the practice which is to establish a diagnosis, facilitate neurological and biomechanical integrity through appropriate chiropractic case management, and to promote health.

I entered the chiropractic field primarily because of this premise, of a premise that believes that the body is a self-regulating and self-healing mechanism. I believe most of us in this room will agree with that, and it is the one thing that I believe was causing all of us to look for a better health care system for our people in the United States.

I have also included in the packet a catalogue and a video because I believe that we need to recognize how high of a caliber the chiropractic occupation has evolved over the last 106 years. And through the catalogue you will be able to recognize specifically our course curriculum and how diverse our curriculum is in order to support the position of primary care provider for chiropractors. Right now, the CCE, one of our accrediting bodies, has raised the minimum requirements for entering chiropractic to 90 hours, which means that we are attracting a much higher level of academic prospective student.

Also, I would like to mention just a point on Title No. 7 under Student Loan Forgiveness for MUAs and to support that effort. And just to give you an example, in our school we have over 700 students. And I sent an e-mail and just asked the students randomly, and I said, "How many of you will be interested in supporting an underserved area if the government is able to help you and forgive some of your loans?" And within 24 hours we received over 50 e-mails saying that they would like to, and I have submitted that to the Commission. That also states all the areas that they have been willing to serve.

My point in this is to be able to just mention to you that right now other portal-of-entry professions such as medicine and osteopathy are part of that system, and I believe chiropractors should be part of that, too.

And in closing, I have also enclosed just a brief summary of some of the research to support the position of primary care provider and also the joint research that we are doing also with the medical community in order to continue to advance chiropractic research and the efficacy that we have through chiropractic care. Thank you so much for your time.

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