What I learned from the medical residents

What I Learned from the Neurology Residents

Last Friday I lectured in front of the Neurology residents at the University of Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.  This is part of my Royal College of Physicians training, my year long project is due on the 31^st of December.    The residents meet regularly and they use this time for journal club, clinical instruction and exposure to other speakers.   As is normal, I only had about 15 minutes to present myself, get my point across and gather some data.  I decided to create 5 simple sounding questions that run the basic gamut of what I have been learning from the medical school and therefore teaching you.  Here are the 5 questions that I presented, I passed them out to the Residents.  Many come in and out as they are all on call, 12 completed these forms.  I had them put an X next to the answer at the beginning without lecturing then a circle around the answer AFTER they heard me speak.  The results were very interesting and I am still thinking through them.  Their choices were Agree, Disagree or Not Enough Information.

Spine pain consists of both Mechanical and Anatomical sources 

Chiropractors are Board Certified

 Research shows that Chiropractic Care is safe in properly selected patient 

Current research shows spinal manipulation can reduce pain at the CNS level

Current research shows chiropractic management of spinal related disability is more effective than medical care or physical therapy 

The results were very interesting.  In question #1 – Spine pain consists of both Mechanical and Anatomical sources, before the lecture the Resident answers showed that 9 Agreed while 3 answered the did not have enough information.  At the end, all 12 answered Agreed.  

In question #2 – Chiropractors are Board Certified, before the lecture 7 answered Agreed while 5 wrote they didn’t have enough information to answer.   At the end of the lecture, all 12 answered Agreed. 

In question #3 – Research shows chiropractic care is safe in properly selected patients, 11 answered they did not have enough information to answer and 1 disagreed.  After the lecture 9 Agreed.

In question #4 – Current research shows spinal manipulation can reduce pain at the CNS level.  Before the lecture all 12 answered they did not have enough information to answer, after the lecture 8 Agreed, 1 Disagreed and 3 answered there was not enough information. 

In question #5 – Research shows that chiropractic management of spinal related disability is more effective than medicine or physical therapy, 3 Disagreed and 9 said there was not enough information.  After the lecture 3 Agreed, 4 Disagreed and 5 said there was not enough information. 

What I saw was, the “bigger” the claim for chiropractic success the more difficult it was to get that point across in a short period of time.  My assumption is there was a need for “more information” just as many of them had indicated, but unfortunately there was not enough time.  This is important when you are talking to medical doctors, you have to be careful to make sure that you are presenting the ideas that fit into the timeframe that you have available.  When you are dealing with short time frames like an introduction or talking in the clinic hall, keep it simple…the BIG topics are for the CE lunch and learns or the 8-hour lecture.