A Vision of the Future
An article by Dr. Ron Cherubino, clinical director of Cherubino Health Center 

   The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word vision as Unusual confidence in discernment or perception; intelligent foresight: as in -a man of vision. It goes on to define visionary as, One who is characterized by vision or foresight. And in the same definition tells us that a visionary may also be, One who is given to impractical or speculative ideas; i.e. a dreamer. 

   What is the difference between a man of vision and a dreamer? Jules Verne, Christopher Columbus and Alexander Graham Bell are today considered men of vision, yet in their own time they were considered dreamers. In fact, many believed that these men were insane. Some of their most adamant critics and accusers were from the ranks of the most highly educated people of their day. These scholars used the most "advanced" information of the day to prove the impracticality and insanity of these men's ideas. 

   Jules Verne believed that man would someday travel to the moon. Christopher Columbus apparently believed that the world was something other than flat. Alexander Graham Bell believed that it was possible to speak to one another over great distances through wires. Each of these men endured the resistance, ridicule and scorn of their contemporaries because of their beliefs. Yet they persevered. And each of them has positively impacted our lives in some way. 

   Joseph Lister, a British surgeon, met with incredible resistance when he proposed that surgical patients in 19th-century England were dying from microorganisms that existed on the tools used to perform surgeries. The criticism and mockery that Dr. Lister was subject to nearly ruined him both professionally and personally. But he persevered. Within a short period of time, deaths from operating room infections were reduced from over 50 percent to less than 12 percent. 

   I often wonder how I would have viewed these men and their ideas if I had been alive during that period in history. While I would like to think that I would have been understanding and supportive of their ideas, I have my serious doubts. 

   For nearly two years, in my late teens, I needlessly suffered from a number of debilitating conditions because I was unenlightened and therefore resistant to the use of natural health-care methods. It was only out of total desperation that I finally, and somewhat skeptically, sought out alternative answers to my problems. Ever since that time my way of approaching "different" and unfamiliar information has changed. While I certainly don't accept all that is presented to me on blind faith, neither do I reject the unfamiliar without close examination and consideration. 

   The prolific inventor and visionary, Thomas Edison, once said: "The Doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, and diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease." 

   I first heard this quotation while I was a student in Chiropractic College in the late 1970s. My time in Chiropractic College was truly a blessing. Although I didn't fully realize it at the time, I was surrounded by an extremely high percentage of open-minded, enlightened and visionary young men and women. This environment established in me a solid foundation of understanding and unwavering belief. 

   When I began in private practice in 1982, I brought with me an intense passion and a vision for the future. I was also well trained in the newest nonforceful chiropractic techniques. Within a relatively short period of time, my zealous attitudes had begun to upset my well-established, older colleagues. I not only began to openly use newer approaches and techniques that I had learned during and after my schooling, but was seeing results with patients that could not be matched with their older techniques. 

   Eventually, word reached the state chiropractic board that trouble was afoot. A young, bold and radical chiropractor, it seemed, had infiltrated the ranks of the conservative Northeast "brotherhood". He was not only openly practicing nontraditional treatment techniques, including radical nutritional approaches, but he was "stealing" patients from those practicing the older techniques. And to make matters worse he was successfully treating conditions that the older techniques couldn't touch. He was also making no bones (no pun intended) about trying to share these techniques with his fellow chiropractors. 

   Well it all hit the fan and I found myself in a legal battle with the Chiropractic Board. For five years they unsuccessfully tried to prevent me from practicing a whole-body integrated approach to health care. I ended up bringing the case to the Massachusetts State Supreme Court, and while the outcome was not completely to my liking, I did retain my license to practice chiropractic. 

   I am absolutely thankful for having gone through that experience. I not only continue to practice a refined form of those early techniques but also am viewed as a pioneer and sought after as a lecturer and teacher of those principles and approaches. 

   I now have a vision of the future. It is a vision in which all healthcare is first and foremost practiced for the benefit of people in need. I see a time where any and all effective forms of care are tried, tested and accepted because they alleviate human suffering. I see a time when the pecuniary filth that now resides in our current health care system is eradicated; a time where the debauchery that now exists will be a memory for history students to wonder over in disbelief; the subject of conversation over a glass of wine while seated in front of a blazing fire where tales are spun of the horrors of a health-care system gone mad. 

   I see a future where all health care practitioners are healers, artists and masters of compassionate healing—where people will work together, where health care and finances are forever separated, where doctors are servants and patients are served. 

   It is up to each and every one of us to open our minds and our hearts to the possibility of a better future. In this way, and only in this way, will we ever have any hope of achieving a better future. 

Dare to imagine!
Dare to believe!
Dare to achieve!
Hold on to the vision!