Issue 10 - July2004

Women who have made a difference Chiropractic’s ‘feminine touch’

From the earliest days of chiropractic, the profession has always welcomed female practitioners. For example, Mabel Palmer, the “first lady” of chiropractic (B.J.’s wife) became a chiropractor in 1905. And the nine people in National College of Chiropractic’s second graduating class (in 1907) were all women.

Today, colleges report a growing enrollment of women and Chiropractic Economics annual salary and expense survey shows a growing trend for women in chiropractic: In 2004, 16.6 percent of respondents were women, compared to 14.7 percent in 2003.

Many women have made a difference in chiropractic. In this section, we recognize four: Drs. Patricia Arthur, Corinne Morgan, Ellen Witt and Madeline Behrendt.

Dr. Patricia Arthur: Legal trailblazer
Dr. Patricia Arthur would like to be remembered for her involvement in sports medicine. And certainly the many athletes she has adjusted, including Olympians, will remember her because she helped keep them physically able to compete at their best.

But to most of the chiropractic world, Arthur will be known as a legal trailblazer, a co-plaintiff in the Wilk vs. the AMA et al trial.

The Wilk case was not Dr. Arthur’s first legal battle. That came shortly after she graduated from Palmer College of Chiropractic in December 1974. She opened a practice in Estes Park, Colo. The town’s small, newly opened hospital allowed her to use its facilities, including its lab and x-ray equipment.

But, as soon as she hung up her shingle — and despite the fact that she had her first day booked solid with patients — the head of the board of directors of the hospital told her it was illegal for chiropractors to use hospital facilities in Colorado.

Dr. Arthur fought the policy and lost. She closed the practice because she had no x-ray facilities for her patients.

Dr. Chester Wilk (Wilk vs. the AMA) heard about Dr. Arthur’s problem and asked her if she would be willing to become a plaintiff in an anti-discrimination suit against the medical profession.

Dr. Arthur joined Drs. Wilk, Michael Pedigo, James Bryden and Steven Lumsden in the fight against the AMA and other medical associations. She endured the 14-year fight, which officially ended on November 26, 1990. On that day, a U.S. Appeals Court upheld the court of appeals that the AMA was guilty of a “lengthy, systematic, successful and unlawful boycott” of doctors of chiropractic and their patients.

Throughout the long years of trials, Arthur went on with her life and became highly involved in sports medicine, especially in the Olympics and the Hawaii Ironman competition.

Dr. Arthur achieved another victory after her move to Hawaii. She was part of a team that designed, built and credentialed a hospital in a small town. Once it was built, she was asked to be on the staff. She is now the only chiropractor in the State of Hawaii who has full hospital staff privileges as a consulting chiropractic physician.

Dr. Corinne Morgan: Believing broke down barriers
Many people overcome obstacles to go to chiropractic college: Some sacrifice high-paying jobs to follow their passions. Some depend on spouses to support the family until they earn their degree. Many — perhaps most — take out big student loans for financial support.

But few people have had the experiences of Corinne Morgan: She overcame the barriers of racial discrimination, single-parenthood and dire poverty to achieve her coveted goal — a doctorate of chiropractic from Palmer College.

Dr. Morgan earned that degree in 1988. Today she runs a thriving chiropractic practice in South Philadelphia, her home town. And perhaps more important — she has mentored dozens of young women to help them overcome their own personal barriers and achieve their dream of becoming a doctor.

Her selflessness has been recognized: She has been nominated for a variety of awards, including Woman of the Year, Chiropractor of the Year and Alumni of the Year. She has also been featured in Essence Magazine as a role model for other young black women. Dr. Morgan’s story is an inspiration to anyone who wonders whether she has what it takes to succeed.

She left her mother’s home at 16, lived with her grandmother for a year and married at 17. By 22, she was divorced with three preschool children, no real education and no job.

Racial discrimination — from being denied jobs because of her color to having to fight for an opportunity to get an education — has been no stranger to Morgan.

Many students go to school on a shoestring. Dr. Morgan did it on less than that. To pay the rent, she sold pocketbooks from door-to-door in the evenings. Later, she found low-income housing for $19 month, where she lived until she finished her degree.

Dr. Morgan now practices with her son, who has followed in his mother’s footsteps. Part of what she loves is passing on what she has learned to others, especially to young women from all over the country — Arizona, Louisiana, Iowa, South Carolina, Texas, Oregon, Alaska. They all ask her for advice.

She tells them: “If I could do this, you can do this. But you have to have faith and focus on what you want. If you apply yourself, there’s no reason you can’t succeed.”

Dr. Ellen Witt: Winning a ‘first’ in Birmingham
Big victories — such as the legalization of chiropractic in Louisiana — are celebrated in a big way within the profession. But small victories deserve acknowledgement, too. They serve as building blocks for the future.

One such small victory is Dr. Ellen Witt’s appointment as the first chiropractor in Birmingham, Ala., to be granted full hospital privileges. Being first is significant. But even more significant is the fact that the hospital had to change its bylaws to give her privileges. And the bylaw change happened because Dr. Witt had the support from Birmingham’s medical community.

A 1996 graduate of Life University, Dr. Witt bought an established practice in Birmingham. The most successful strategy Ellen has used to build her practice is establishing herself as a respected professional among the medical doctors of Birmingham. She learned to emulate the professional behavior of the medical doctors she came to know — calling the physicians of her patients, discussing diagnoses and sending progress reports. In the course of this networking, she educated the medical community about chiropractic.

In January of 1998, a neurosurgeon at the University of Alabama Birmingham Hospital contacted Dr. Witt and asked if she would be interested in becoming the chiropractor at a new multi-disciplinary spine clinic at the hospital where people with back pain could get a variety of services, including pain management, anesthesia, neurosurgery, physiatry and neurology. The hospital wanted a chiropractor to act as a point of entry for the system.

It took five years, but the spine clinic finally opened its doors in March 2004 — but only after the director of neurosurgery for the hospital demanded that the hospital’s by laws be amended so that Witt could have privileges.

Dr. Witt sees her involvement in the spine clinic as a great opportunity for the profession.“I hope the little contribution I make exponentially benefits the chiropractors that follow,” she says. “I think my involvement with the spine clinic is really opening doors. When the general public can say, ‘There’s a chiropractor at the hospital,’ it brings chiropractic into the light and gives it the respect that it deserves.”

Dr. Madeline Behrendt: A model chiropractor
To describe Dr. Madeline Behrendt as a “model chiropractor” is not stretching the truth. Her first career was spent walking the runway as a couture fashion model in Paris, showing off Givenchy gowns.

But now, she may be considered a model chiropractor, not only for her practice in Boise, Idaho, but also because of the attention she has brought to chiropractic’s impact on women’s health. Dr. Behrendt has done extensive research on this topic and has been featured in the popular press, on television and on the Internet for the results her research has shown.

At 19, Dr. Behrendt was one of six women who modeled in Givenchy’s daily shows in Paris, as well as shows for royalty and private clients.

When the desire to return to friends and family pulled her back to New York, she embarked on her second career: management with the Polo/Ralph Lauren Company. The position she held when she left Polo/Ralph Lauren after nine years was senior director of men’s design operations — a high level executive position.

A health crisis caused her departure from her executive position and spurred her on to search for a model of excellence in healthcare. She found chiropractic and it became her third career. She graduated from Life University in 1995 and set up a cash-based family/wellness practice in Boise.

Behrendt believes that research is a way to let the world know about the results chiropractic achieves, because it is evidence-based. But when she first looked for published research on women’s health and chiropractic, she came up empty-handed. So, she committed to tackling women’s health as a research area.

Her first project was a three-volume practice manual volume called, A Woman’s Experience: Reports on Women’s Health Topics Which Respect the Lifestyle and Culture of Subluxation-Centered Women.

Her accomplishments include:

• Presenting at the 2001 United Nations Conference on Women. She was one of four chiropractors invited to participate;

• Being interviewed for Web MD;

• Writing a monthly column for her chiropractic association’s newspaper.

Editor’s Note: The experiences of Drs. Arthur, Morgan, Witt and Behrendt were taken from chapters of Head, Hands, Heart: 100 Years of Women in Chiropractic by Jacalyn Buettner, DC.