Chiropractic?

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PlantersPunch

PlantersPunch

Tufts c/o 2012!
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Hi,

I'm a vet school applicant and was wondering about the availability of chiropractic teaching at vet school. My first choice is Tufts, so any insight from there would be helpful. Also, are their internships/residencies in chiropractic and is it a boarded specialty? My chief interest in equine chiropractic, but any kind of information would be appreciated

Thanks!
 
There really aren't any options for certification in holistic modalities until after you have your DVM. There are several options for acupuncture certification (Chi Institute, IVAS, Medical Acupuncture at Colorado), but only two for chiropractic that I can think of (http://www.animalchiropractic.org/ and http://www.thehealingoasis.com/). As far as training during school, try looking for a school with an active holistic medicine club, as they'll be your best bet for exposure to things like chiropractic.

I believe Dr. Pitcairn just announced that vet students will be allowed to take classes in his new homeopathy school.

There is no board certification for acupuncture or chiropractic, and probably won't be any time soon.
 
Thhbbptthh. As much as I respect Pitcairn's attempts, this "school" of his is not nearly a substitute for proper extensive internships and AHVMA-sponsored training

When you finish, you can expect to have the skills you need to treat and cure cases, provided you attend all sessions, complete homework and study assignments and begin to work with patients during the course

In a course consisting of a few weeks? PLEASE. Now, I am all for homeopathy, and believe it can be a great viable alternative, but this kind of snake oil is NOT going to make people any more accepting towards naturopathy/homeopathy.....

Planters- the AHVMA is a WONDERFUL palce to start for internships/residency contacts. You can even find a holistic vet by state and city. School are becoming more and more accepting to offering "alternative" instruction - here at VMRCVM we just had a great holistic medicine after-hours/weekend course. It is a difficult road but there ARE opportunities.
 
*shrug* Frankly I think all homeopathy is hooey, but I will say that Dr. Pitcairn had some very loyal followers at the AHVMA convention this year.

You have a great point, though- I should have mentioned AHVMA. I went this year with four other U of MN students, and we had a blast and learned so much. AHVMA really seems to be trying to reach out to students, and everyone was so friendly and willing to talk with us and answer our questions. Next year's conference is in Reno... it's a great one to try and attend! Beware their website find-a-vet feature, though, as it's pretty out of date (for vets in MN, anyway).
 
Thanks for the input, but I'm not all that interested in homeopathy, more just the chiropractic and MAYBE acupuncture, I know they are related but I'm just more interested in the stuff that actually aligns spines and all that, haha. FYI I did find a veterinary chiropractic certification program through the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association, that may be a bit more legit, but who knows.

Thanks again!🙂
 
PlantersPunch said:
Hi,

I'm a vet school applicant and was wondering about the availability of chiropractic teaching at vet school.
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If your interest is performing thrust & non-thrust manipulation, which is also a component of physical therapy, there are several established programs--here's a link to the one at the University of Tennessee:
http://www.canineequinerehab.com/equine-rehab-pt-program.asp

Here is another established program (which gets good reviews from what I hear).
http://www.caninerehabilitation.com/index.html
 
As far as chiropractors are concerned, it depends on the state scope of practice laws. My state's scope is limited to the human frame only. It can get fuzzy though with animal massage, animal physical therapy, etc.
I am a chiropractor and my chiro school is near Cornell so there is a great interest and a lot of partnerships between professions providing diplomates and such. Good Luck.
 
Bill59 said:
Sure it is, it's water. Maybe if the patient is a little thirsty it might help.
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I'm not a big homeopathy person myself besides just using some good ol' Bach's Rescue Remedy, but when they can explain just how exactly the placebo effect works, I'll be more convinced of its hooeyness. 😀 I'm more of a holistic nutrition and behavior person myself, but whatever (seems to) works, right?
 
How about whatever actually works?

The majority of the placebo effect is explained by reporting bias, observer bias and methodological deficiencies in trial design. The placebo effect in subjective assessment of pain is likely due to activation of opioid and dopaminergic neurotransmission in specific brain regions.

Five large meta-analyses of homeopathy have been done and all have reached the same conclusion -- homeopathy produces no benefit over placebo. Of course it's hard to make money telling people you're selling inert substances, so you need to dress it up with some mystical woo to get people to believe you need some sort of special training to prescribe water.

Aside from undermining the scientifically illiterate public's understanding of evidence-based medicine, and misdiagnosing and avoiding treatment that's actually effective, there's the ethical concern of lack of informed consent.

After all, a pharmaceutical company would never be allowed to market a drug that's no better than placebo.
 
Bill59 said:
After all, a pharmaceutical company would never be allowed to market a drug that's no better than placebo.
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Weren't anti-depressants just found to be no better than placebo in people with mild to moderate depression? Seems that the drug companies were certainly allowed to market those. 😉

Still, even a sometimes flawed testing system is better that no testing at all as is the case with the homeopathic remedies and other related nonsense.
 
*shrug* I'm not a big proponent of homeopathy (if people want to do it and it works for them, that's cool, if it doesn't, no biggie), like I said, but the placebo effect sure seems to be pretty powerful either way you look at it.
 
Rebeki said:
Weren't anti-depressants just found to be no better than placebo in people with mild to moderate depression? Seems that the drug companies were certainly allowed to market those. 😉
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Anti-depressants are labeled to treat major depressive disorder because they've been shown by at least 2 clinical trials to be effective. Manufacturers are allowed to market drugs for labeled indications. Of course like veterinarians, physicians are allowed to use drugs in an extra-label fashion.

The paper you are probably referring to by Kirsch re-evaluated previously performed studies and confirmed the drugs were more effective than placebo for major depressive disorder. As you mentioned, the did not find efficacy for patients with mild or moderate depression.

The fact that post hoc analysis identified certain subpopulations of patients that responded differently is not surprising. I suspect if this is confirmed in other studies, these drugs will no longer be considered indicated for these patient populations. And hopefully, informed clinicians will not prescribe them for that.

Similarly, if controlled studies were to ever show homeopathy is effective for particular conditions, informed clinicians will use them.

But for now, to pass such treatment off on patients as effective is fraud.
 
You are certainly much more informed and educated in this area than I am😳

I was simply trying to point out that our current system of pharmaceutical testing is not foolproof BUT that it is certainly far better than no testing whatsoever.

I have to deal with a close relative who is a devout believer in homeopathy and other new age "medicine" (I'm not talking about acupuncture here, but some truly wacky stuff). I totally agree that unless there is some real research showing the efficacy of a treatment, it should be considered fraud to pass it off to people. People like my relative are eager to believe in it.
 
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