Should physician social networks include chiropractors?  I don’t think so.

My human signal likely wouldn’t benefit from a chiropractor’s input.  Similarly, I’m not sure that a chiropractor would benefit tremendously from the input of allopaths and osteopaths.  This isn’t a judgment about any chiropractor’s value, it’s just that our worlds are too divergent.  To suggest that ‘we all just need to get along‘ is missing the point.  Complementary physical care has its place.  But a great community is about people who have the capacity to make one another stronger through cooperative relationships.

I suspect that the chiropractors have the numbers to support a tidy little vertical of their own.  There’s a big opportunity for someone so inclined.

Would I willingly participate in a network that connects MDs and chiropractors?  I would if the network proved valuable.  And that can be a challenge independent of who you invite.  Sermo, for the record, excludes chiropractors from membership.

Nicholas Christakis in Connected suggests that all of this should evolve on its own, independent of what any of us individually believe.

We do not cooperate with one another because a state or a central authority forces us to.  Instead, our ability to get along emerges spontaneously from the decentralized actions of people who form groups with connected fates and a common purpose.

What do you think?