Although we would expect experienced clinicians to not get too hung up on the problem, we have seen the specificity albatross have a major negative impact on chiropractic technique teaching programs. It may also be impacting negatively on the clinical practice of chiropractic, in the form of suboptimal interventions having been inspired by preconceived notions. At every meeting of the American Back Society, you'll hear that a good surgical outcome depends on the right surgeon, doing the right surgery, on the right patient, at the right time, for the right reason. Students don't see at first that the surgery metaphor is much abused when applied to a manual, conservative care setting. After all, the consequences of a surgeon removing the wrong kidney are not really comparable to a chiropractor adjusting the wrong spinal segment, especially since as a general rule it is not possible to determine the right spinal segment.
Surgery is distinctly noniterative.
Experienced clinicians know that chiropractic care, by comparison, is inherently iterative. They don't determine the right listings, so much as converge on them as the case develops. Call them suboptimal interventions, since almost all will work in the long run. In short, there is no comparison between the pre-surgical diagnosis and the chiropractic listing. Chiropractic faculty members adhering to contrary system techniques frequently struggle with one another using the students as a mediation, much of it over specific listings and how to get to obtain them.