Do you often think about a healthcare-focused career? No one needs to tell you that a comprehensive, customized approach to patient care is all-important. How can you learn about patient-appropriate, evidence-based treatments for better healthcare over one’s lifetime? In chiropractic school.
The Chiropractic Approach to Care
In chiropractic college, students learn to seek the underlying cause or causes of chronic conditions. Doctors of Chiropractic examine the interaction between the external environment and the internal environment of the body, including the immune, endocrine, and gastrointestinal systems.
In examining the body’s systems, chiropractors address a variety of factors, including the following:
How Chiropractic Colleges Contribute to Better Health
The number of individuals suffering from complex chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, kidney disease, and autoimmune disorders continues to rise.
The Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease estimates that by 2030, 83 million people in the U.S. will have three or more chronic health conditions, up from 31 million in 2015. Knowing how these conditions affect each other is essential.
Central to the chiropractic profession’s approach to patient treatment, health, and well-being, is the proper relationship between structure – primarily the spine and musculoskeletal system – and function, as coordinated by the body’s nervous system.
Chiropractic colleges focus on a whole-person, biopsychosocial philosophy of health rather than a biomedical one. The curriculum embraces principles, procedures, and methods to preserve and restore health through a coordinated, comprehensive approach to health and wellness.
Examples:
A Chiropractic College Education
Your chiropractic education includes gaining competencies in diagnostic assessment, communicating effectively with patients. You’ll also be prepared to work cooperatively with M.D.s and other healthcare professionals when medically necessary.
The 3.3-year chiropractic degree program, the Doctor of Chiropractic, encompasses a minimum of 4,200 hours of class time, lab work, extensive anatomy, and physiological knowledge, effective case management, and patient-centered care skills. In fact, you’ll have similar in-class hours in basic sciences and clinical sciences to medical school students.
You’ll apply that knowledge to patient interactions during your first year as a chiropractic student and complete a clinic-setting internship serving patients before you graduate.
Chiropractic Career Outlook
The chiropractic profession is the third-largest physician-level profession, following medical doctors and dentists. More than 100,000 chiropractors are serving large and small communities worldwide. Patient satisfaction ranges above 90% in various categories, as detailed in 2017’s Chiropractic: a Safe and Cost Effective Approach to Care.
Doctors of chiropractic with established practices can earn a salary ranging from $107,283 to $150,471, according to the data site Salary.com.
The Chiropractic School at Cleveland University-Kansas City
Cleveland University-Kansas City (CUKC) is a private, nonprofit, chiropractic and health sciences university. Our chiropractic history started in 1922. Today, more than 11,000 chiropractors in the United States have earned a Doctor of Chiropractic degree from our College of Chiropractic.
The 34-acre CUKC campus is in Overland Park, Kansas, a Kansas City area suburb of 190,000 people. Overland Park is recognized for its livability, family friendliness, and affordability.
CUKC also offers a B.S. in Human Biology degree, which you can use as a springboard into the College of Chiropractic. This bachelor’s degree coursework is tailor-made for those who plan to pursue the Doctor of Chiropractic degree. Some CUKC students even choose a concurrent B.S./ Doctor of Chiropractic program that can reduce the amount of time in school.
Interested in learning more? Download this free eBook right now: Your Complete Guide to the Chiropractic Profession.
