Are chiropractors real doctors??

You would be shocked at how many times I get asked this question? My initial gut reaction is something like this, "REALLY???" but then my Doctor inside of me realizes that most people don't know what it takes to become a doctor of chiropractic.

We, as in chiropractors, graduate from a four year school, and then go to another 4 year Chiropractic school. On top of that 8 year stretch, we do a minimun of 900 clinic hours to master being a Doctor.

What can we possibley study for 4 years just to learn to crack a back? We study, anatomy, embryology, microbiology, diagnosis, neurology, orthopedics, nutrition, radiography (studying and taking x-rays) and much much more. Chiropractic school is a total of 4485 classroom hours where as M.D.'s are in the classroom for 4248 hours.

So, now i propose the question to you...........are chiropractors real doctors???