Dr. Weeks’ Comment:
A person is practicing medicine if he does one or more of the following:
(1) Offers or undertakes to diagnose, cure, advise or prescribe for any human disease, ailment, injury, infirmity, deformity, pain or other condition, physical or mental, real or imaginary, by any means or instrumentality;
(see http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=18.71.011 )
Talk about nonsense! According to the law in the State of Washington, the following people are illegally practicing medicine:
1) the mother who puts a bandaid on the scraped knee of her son (illness: abrasion)
2) the grandmother who tells her grandson he looks tired and should go to bed (illness: insomnia)
3) the father who offers his son some water after a sports workout (illness: dehydration)
4) the husband who rubs his hard working wife’s sore neck (illness: myalgia)
5) the wife who reassures and tells her husband not to worry about the important business meeting tomorrow (illness: anxiety)
Why is this an outrage? Because it allows the State to selectively enforce a law that everyone is breaking every day when and if it suits the state. Ayn Rand once cautioned: The role of the government is to enact so many conflicting laws that everyone is a criminal and then the State can enforce laws selectively. This is what is happening in medicine today.
Just thought you would want to know the latest news: YOU are a criminal!
RCW 18.71.011Definition of practice of medicine ”” Engaging in practice of chiropractic prohibited, when. |
A person is practicing medicine if he does one or more of the following:
(1) Offers or undertakes to diagnose, cure, advise or prescribe for any human disease, ailment, injury, infirmity, deformity, pain or other condition, physical or mental, real or imaginary, by any means or instrumentality;
(2) Administers or prescribes drugs or medicinal preparations to be used by any other person;
(3) Severs or penetrates the tissues of human beings;
(4) Uses on cards, books, papers, signs or other written or printed means of giving information to the public, in the conduct of any occupation or profession pertaining to the diagnosis or treatment of human disease or conditions the designation “doctor of medicine”, “physician”, “surgeon”, “m.d.” or any combination thereof unless such designation additionally contains the description of another branch of the healing arts for which a person has a license: PROVIDED HOWEVER, That a person licensed under this chapter shall not engage in the practice of chiropractic as defined in RCW 18.25.005.