When physical therapists approached Mississippi lawmakers to create its own licensing board, they found themselves pitted against chiropractors, who want to prevent the group and others from certain therapeutic activity, such as spinal manipulation. We are the experts at spinal adjusting and manipulation, said Mike Patterson, vice president of the Mississippi Chiropractic Association. That is our turf. This is not a bill to prevent anyone from doing something they are qualified to do, he said. We would never prevent anyone from doing anything that s a part of their profession.
Physical therapists can do manipulations.
All they have to do is get appropriate hours. Educational standards cannot be compared, said Mike Higginbothan, president of the Mississippi Physical Therapy Association, who is on staff at Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg. They use clock hours, he said. All of our education programs are traditional semester hours through medical schools. They want to somehow equate the two.