On October 14th of this year, Dr. Joseph C. Keating passed away at the age of 57 in Kansas City, MO. Born on October 8th of 1950 Dr. Keating grew up in the Hudson River Valley. He studied clinical psychology and clinical research methods at the State University of New York at Albany and was awarded a PhD in 1981. After a post-doctoral residency program at a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialty hospital in Schenectady, NY, he specialized in the conservative treatment of lower urinary tract infections, working in a collaborative private practice with a urologist for two years. For 16 years Dr. Keating was a practicing clinical psychologist in the state of California.
Dr. Keating's academic career started at the Behavioral Medicine Program at the University of the Pacific in 1981. In 1983 he received an appointment as Professor at Palmer College of Chiropractic West. He served as Director of Research at Northwestern College of Chiropractic and Western States Chiropractic College and was a Professor at Los Angeles College of Chiropractic from 1994–2000. Dr. Keating was Homewood Professor at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College from 1999–2002. His most recent academic appointment was with the Cleveland Chiropractic College as Historian of the Profession, an endowed position, funded by the National Chiropractic Mutual Insurance Company. Dr. Keating was an editorial board member for Clinical Chiropractic, the Chiropractic Journal of Australia, the Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association, and the Journal of Manipulative & Physiological Therapeutics. He published over 500 articles and 19 books and book chapters including A History of Los Angeles College of Chiropractic, B.J. of Davenport, A History of Chiropractic Education in North America, Toward a Philosophy of the Science of Chiropractic, and We Take Care of our Own: NCMIC & the Story of Malpractice Insurance in Chiropractic.
Serving throughout his career as a mentor to many aspiring chiropractic researchers, since 1988 he also served on the board of directors and as vice-president for the National Institute of Chiropractic Research, a non-profit corporation promoting and conducting research into chiropractic. In the mid-1990s he also took an interest in chiropractic history. A former president (1994–1995), at the time of his death he served as vice-president of the Association for the History of Chiropractic.
I first became familiar with Joe's work when I was writing a review article on the reliability of motion palpation noting his name as co-author on nearly every chiropractic paper I retrieved. My continued interest in both the theoretical models and the research underlying orthopaedic manual therapy had me reading every thoughtful paper to which he contributed. My personal interest in the history of manual medicine once again led me to Joe's work that in the true academic spirit he made freely accessible to all at: http://www.chiro.org/Plus/History/. Last year Joe asked me to join an email group of noted chiropractic clinicians, educators, and researchers. Providing an at times profoundly different perspective to this group, I enjoyed and was thoroughly impressed with the breadth and depth of Joe's knowledge, his unwavering ability to expose dogmatic thinking in chiropractic but also in other professions, his ability to stimulate critical thinking, and above all his wit, his intelligence, and his dedication. In my communications with many chiropractic health care colleagues I have learned of the great influence Joe has had on the growth of chiropractic into an increasingly evidence-based profession, a development that ultimately has benefited the whole field of manual medicine and also society. Although we never met in person, I count Joe as one of my mentors and I will miss our exchanges composed of friendly banter and profound thought, the latter of course mainly produced by Joe.
A formal memorial service for Dr. Keating will be held at Cleveland Chiropractic College on the Kansas City Campus on Thursday, January 31st of 2008.