Chiropractic Training vs. Medical Training
I was surprised to learn that, when I graduated from chiropractic school, that I would have taken 200 more class hours than a graduate of Johns Hopkins Medical School
This table is an eye opener because chiropractors receive more hours in diagnosis, orthopedics, microbiology, and more than twice as many hours in hours in neurology and radiology. WOW!
You may also enjoy reviewing the About Chiropractic Page.
Yes, Chiropractors do have more “classroom” time because while we are listening to lectures on ENT, they are in clinics actually seeing patients with the various conditions, and seeing the abnormals on examination, rather than just reading about them in a book. We have more classroom hours, because so many of our diagnosis classes we don’t get ANY experience actually seeing patients with these conditions. Medical Doctors see the conditions and hear the abnormal sounds, see the findings on examination that lead to a diagnosis. The correlation is that Chiropractors are learning to play golf in the classroom, Medical doctors spend more time learning to play golf on an actual course.
Also, our supervised clinical experience is part of our training during our 4-5 years in Chiropractic College, whereas a Medical Doctor still has a minimum of 3 years of Residency with supervised clinical training actually seeing sick people before he can be licensed to practice medicine on his own.
Chiropractic Colleges require 250 adjustments to graduate, and there is no requirement that any of these are symptomatic. Plus if a chiropractor can see 50 patients per day, and works 3 days a week (this is what the president of one Chicago School said he saw in practice) then this is equivalent to 2 weeks practice experience before a chiropractor graduates and can be licensed.
So while you can put “classroom hours” across from each other and make yourself feel good, you can’t do the same with Clinical Experience because they get far more.
(Just ask any Chiropractic Student that has had the opportunity to attend a hospital residency with medical students. They will tell you they learned huge amounts in even that short period of time, and medical students get it for years. To be fair, the chiropractic students will also tell you that when asked they are better prepared to spout off “lists” of differentials from all of those classroom hours – so there is benefit, but it doens’t make us superior. That depends on what the Chiropractor does once he gets out of school).
Hi Duane
When did you graduate? When I was in *clinic* (which lasts 1 year) the requirements were 300 “out patient” visits (translates as paying customers) AND 200 (or more) in-patient (student, family) visits. AND we had to do a minimum of 20 full new patient works-ups (including full history and a complete exam, and films, if indicated) AND we take and read our own x-rays, unlike medical graduates.
Yeah, a busy (and well-established) practice might do that in a few weeks, but NO student on the planet can wipe out those numbers easily in the alloted year, and some are forced to say an extra semester just to complete their clinic requirements.
We also attended integrative report classes, in which we discuss our cases. Many of us also went daily to watch the radiologists read films for a few hours a day. So, many of these experiences are similar to med students on rounds, even if the types of cases we see are limited. It doesn’t matter, since we don’t treat people for cancer or broken bones, do we? We are very well trained for what we do so…that’s what matters.
I will agree that MDs receive a lot of additional training in residency. However, because of the stupid 36 hour shifts and 80-hour weeks, exhaustion must certainly take it’s toll on their memory retention.
OF COURSE they should (and do) take more hours…look what their license permits them to do…they are licensed to do anything and everything…surgery, prescribing for virtually any and all diseases and disorders. To cover that much terrain, yes, they should and do take more training.
But, when it comes to musculoskeletal knowledge, training, or treatment, chiropractors still leave them in the dust.
Chiropractors are highly educated and strictly regulated, one of the reasons that Chiropractic has the safest record of treatment in the health care industry.