Chiropractors often boast about high patient satisfaction, good clinical outcomes, and “always” having been patient-centered. While evidence supports those claims, it is worthwhile for us to pause and ask, “what does it take to be person-centered?”, especially given a dynamic and increasingly complex 21st-century social and healthcare climate. As with all aspects of patient care, revisiting the behaviors, skills, and competencies relative to person-centered care through the lens of contemporary best practices can result in better quality, high value care for the communities we serve.
In the turn-of-the-century United States, women were among the first chiropractors. In a period when established medical schools barred women from entering because of their gender, chiropractic and other “irregular” medical practices provided a more welcoming home for women interested in health care and a professional career. Immediately before and during World War I, chiropractic schools increased their marketing to women students, as current and prospective male students enlisted in the military or returned to the workforce or the family farm.
Schools emphasized women’s duty to serve their country and to save the field of chiropractic while men were unable to practice. After the war, however, fewer women became chiropractors for a variety of reasons, including federal school funding for male veterans, the spread of licensing laws and required exams, and the rise of chiropractic assistant jobs.
