Greetings Utah Chiropractors!
I hope you’re all having an excellent and productive summer as you’re creating memories for your families and miracles for your patients.
I’ve been reflecting on my past couple of years as president of the association, and I wonder if I’m going to have a legacy. I became active again in the UCPA during 2020. I was a member of UCPA for several years before, and even on the board, but over time I let my membership expire. During the 2020 lockdowns, when the state government was threatening to require masks and close businesses, I decided to stand up and be counted as someone who cares about our profession and our freedom to practice.
I called Erin and told her that I wanted to run as district leader on the board. She told me I had to wait a year after joining before I could run to be on the board. Since then, I have continued to be active in the profession, and I have really learned a lot about how many amazing chiropractors there are and what a small fish I really am in this big pond. I’ve been able to shake hands with a lot of state leadership and lawmakers, as well as meet chiropractic leaders from across the country and world, which has been a tremendous gift for me both personally and professionally.
I feel like I’ve been given a great perspective on how chiropractic is viewed by leaders, lawmakers, and other professions—and unfortunately, it’s not as good as I always hoped. You know as well as I do how our patients feel about chiropractic, but the world at large still doesn’t take us very seriously. For that, we have to be serious about our profession, and we have to show up in a way that other professions are not willing to—just to be seen. We also need to be united.
The old adage about chiropractic is that everyone circles their wagons and shoots inward. These are tendencies in our profession that have to stop. If we want equal pay, equal consideration, equal respect, then we have to present a strong and united front. We have to put ourselves on the map—nobody else is going to do it for us.
In addition to being a member of the UCPA, I’m also a member of both the ICA and ACA, because if I don’t agree with policies and stances, I’m going to work to influence them according to my conscience. As a member of the ACA, I received an email some time ago that contained a letter written in opposition to their proposed Medicare legislation—every chiropractor should read this! It is truly heartbreaking to read a letter endorsed by virtually every state and national medical association, and others, who are so blindly and blatantly opposed to chiropractic. How can they treat my profession this way? This is unacceptable. (I’ll have Kim post a link to it at the bottom of this letter for you to read.)
So I am very grateful for your membership in the UCPA. We have hundreds of united doctors in the state who share with us their resources so we can present a united front in our great state. I encourage you to talk to other doctors who are not members of the UCPA and encourage them to join. If you feel like we as an association are not doing enough, or not doing the right things, or not acting strongly enough—please give us feedback.
I want to leave a legacy as a principled chiropractic leader who worked to unite and elevate the profession in the state of Utah.
Thank you for changing the lives of your patients. Thank you for elevating the state of Utah with your loving care and for bringing the blessing of chiropractic to thousands of people every day. And thank you for your support of me and the board. We are grateful for you.
We’ll see you in person in September!
Dr. Spencer Erickson
UCPA President