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The New Doctor of Chiropractic Program:
An Interview with Dr. Paul Hageman
Please note: This article was written in February of 2004 and some program-specific details may no longer be accurate. Please refer to the Chiropractic program web pages for current information.
In the summer of 2003, D’Youville President Sister Denise Roche announced that, beginning in 2004, the college would expand its health professions program to offer a doctor of chiropractic (DC) degree. The program offers two options: a seven-year two-degree bachelor of science and doctor of chiropractic program; and a four-year DC program for qualified students who have already earned a bachelor's degree.
D’Youville is the first liberal arts college in New York State to offer a chiropractic program and only the second in the country, after the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut. However, Bridgeport 's program still exists in isolation of its other health professions programs. So D’Youville's program will be the first truly integrated program within a multidisciplinary health professions and liberal arts college nationwide. All other chiropractic training in North America takes place in single-purpose chiropractic colleges.
The practice and profession of chiropractic was developed by Daniel David Palmer during the late 1890s in Davenport, Iowa . Chiropractic was conceived as a more natural approach to healing than allopathic medicine, drawing upon the body's own recuperative powers. In recent decades, with the growth of alternative therapies and complementary medicine, there has been increasing collaboration between chiropractors and MDs in training, research and practice.
The chiropractic program at D’Youville College is the cornerstone of its Department of Integrative Holistic Health Studies. We asked Dr. Paul T. Hageman, the department chair, to answer some FAQs about the origins of the department and the goals of the chiropractic program.
Q: How was chiropractic chosen?
A: As part of D’Youville's program and curriculum development efforts, we decided to examine the feasibility of offering academic programs related to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Chiropractic is the first CAM program selected because it is considered both alternative and mainstream and has also gained popular acceptance. The 2002 White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy recommended the integration of CAM therapies into the mainstream healthcare system. The increasing acceptance and use of chiropractic by the public, third-party payers, and the federal government further indicate that chiropractic should become more integrated into the mainstream academic and healthcare system.
Q: What is the goal of chiropractic and other complementary and alternative therapies?
A: Complementary and alternative therapies empower individuals to maintain and promote personal health and well-being and prevent the development of disease. American's use of non-traditional modalities like chiropractic has grown exponentially. At D’Youville College, we recognize the need to develop integrative healthcare-healthcare that incorporates practices from complementary and alternative medicine as well as mainstream medicine. We believe that graduates prepared in an integrative program will be well equipped to respond to demands for an improved healthcare system. Referrals among cross-educated professionals will result in better patient care and outcomes leading us to a more integrated, wellness-oriented healthcare system, which will result in lower medical costs.
Q: How many licensed chiropractors will be on the faculty?
A: Ultimately the number of full-time professors or instructors of chiropractic will be about nine to twelve. In single-purpose chiropractic colleges, chiropractors teach everything: the sciences, nutrition, exercise physiology, neuroscience, all of it. D’Youville's program is designed to prepare chiropractors for a healthcare system that is becoming increasingly integrative. The curriculum requires chiropractic students to integrate with students from other health professions by cross registering in courses that have overlapping and shared bodies of knowledge. So the chiropractic students will be studying health assessment in the nurse practitioner classes; they will be integrated with the dietetics students studying nutrition; and they'll be studying disease and pathology with the physician assistants. The licensed chiropractors on the faculty will teach actual chiropractic science-manipulation, soft tissue work, diagnostic imaging work, x-rays, etc. Integrated health care will become the most prevalent method of healthcare delivery within the next decade. And D’Youville College is on this cutting edge, preparing practitioners to meet the challenges of an evolving system.
Q: Are you also educating the educators?
A: Yes. We have designed a 9-credit graduate certificate program in health education, which includes a teaching practicum and covers teaching strategies and methods. We also built a strong research core into the curriculum, the same research core required for all graduate programs at D’Youville. We want to integrate this program with the doctorate of education (EdD) program, so that once students complete the DC, they can enter the Doctor of Education program and become leaders in chiropractic education.
Q: Is the chiropractic program open to Canadian students?
A: Yes. Canadian students will sit for the same national licensing exam as U.S. students. There are currently only two chiropractic colleges in all of Canada: one in Trois Rivieres, Quebec and the other in Toronto. D’Youville already has 900 Canadian education students.
Q: Is there a typical prospective chiropractic student?
A: Chiropractic is the fastest-growing profession in the U.S. today. Interestingly, we have more female than male applicants. Typically, prospective chiropractors know someone in the field, a family member usually, or have had a positive experience with their own chiropractor.
Q: What does the typical chiropractor earn?
A: According to a 2003 survey report in Chiropractic Economics, the net median income for chiropractors in northeastern United States is now between $105,000 and $109,000.
Q: How do chiropractors compare with other doctors in terms of patient loyalty?
A: Chiropractors come out on top, significantly higher than any other health practitioners. Their patients love them! In an age of people complaining bitterly about healthcare, chiropractors have 90% satisfaction ratings.
Q: Many doctors find running a business the most difficult part of their practice. Are you addressing this in the program?
A: We have a very strong entrepreneurship component in the program. Working with D’Youville's Department of Business we will be putting together a dynamic course which will give the graduates more than sufficient knowledge to feel secure in setting up and managing a private practice.
Q: Why is D’Youville College in the forefront of chiropractic and CAM therapies education?
A: If there's any place where cutting-edge knowledge should exist, it's in the university and college environment where it can be intelligently discussed and debated. And D’Youville College has the talent to pull it all together. Right now we're involved with creating an on-campus chiropractic clinic and we also will be developing a community-based clinic.
Q: Will you be introducing acupuncture and clinical hypnotherapy programs in the near future?
A: Yes. We plan on offering several programs in acupuncture including a masters degree program that allows the graduate to become a New York State licensed acupuncturist, a certification program for physicians, and a certification program for drug rehabilitation specialists and professional nurses in acupuncture of the ear, used to treat drug-addicted people.
Hypnotherapy is being used successfully to help patients with severe burns, to control pain both pre- and post-surgery, and to relieve anxiety. It is also used in labor and delivery in obstetrics as well as in psychiatry. Hypnotherapy is growing because we can now demonstrate quantifiable changes that occur in the brain during transinduction and hypnotic states. So that's an exciting area because this therapy can be integrated with a number of graduate-level health disciplines here at D’Youville. It is our intention to establish a Milton H. Erickson Institute in Clinical Hypnotherapy within the Department of Integrative Holistic Health Studies. The institute will offer graduate certification training for health professionals.
For more information on applications, admissions, and prerequisites to the Chiropractic doctoral program, please contact D’Youville College Graduate Admissions at (716) 829-8400 or (800) 777-3921.
