A Doctor of Chiropractic: Why This Healthcare Profession Could Be Right for You

When you’re compelled to find a career that helps people improve their lives, you’re probably looking at healthcare professions. You have many pathways to get there, and one is to become a doctor of chiropractic (D.C.)

Becoming a Doctor of Chiropractic

Ask anyone who works directly with patients, and their #1 reason for doing so is they enjoy helping people achieve their best possible health. Becoming a Doctor of Chiropractic is incredibly satisfying because of its proven non-pharmaceutical, whole-person approach to health and wellness.

Doctors of chiropractic focus on the diagnosis, care, and prevention of functional disorders of the spine and other parts of the musculoskeletal system. Chiropractic care restores joint function and movement, and optimizes health through good nutrition, constructive exercise, improved posture, and proper spinal and extremity joint biomechanics.

Following a comprehensive physical assessment, chiropractic care might include

• Manual treatment that reduces or relieves pain
• Rehabilitative exercises to allow someone to return to a job he or she loves
• Posture recommendations that can improve flexibility, stability, and balance
• Insight about nutrition to improve health outcomes over a lifetime.

A Safe and Cost-effective Approach to Health

The benefits of chiropractic care have been recognized in medical journals, including Spine, Medical Care, and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The guidelines published in these journals call for a non-pharmaceutical approach as a first choice for spine pain management of musculoskeletal origin, and this includes spinal manipulation, the mainstay of chiropractic care.

The 2022 report, Chiropractic: A Safe and Cost-Effective Approach to Health,
noted that decades of research had documented the value and savings that result from chiropractic care. The report states, “the profession is well positioned as a healthcare authority for safe and conservative, first-contact, primary spine care for structural health and well-being.”

That’s welcome news for those who want to become a chiropractor.

3.5 years to a Doctor of Chiropractic Degree

The chiropractic degree program encompasses at least 4,200 hours of class time over 3.5 years. These courses include anatomy, physiology, pathology, diagnosis, radiology, pediatrics, geriatrics, and instruction in chiropractic manual adjusting technique, patient management, and direct patient care, and supervised internship experiences in clinic settings.

In a typical College of Chiropractic, students earn their Doctor of Chiropractic (D.C.) degree in less than four years through a comprehensive and rigorous full-year curriculum. As students progress through school, they must pass a four-part set of exams conducted by the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners (NBCE).

An Emerging Role in Today’s Healthcare Landscape

There has never been a better time to become a chiropractor. Here are four reasons why:

1. Growing consumer interest in conservative, non-pharmacological approaches to health
2. Public concern for side effects of prescribed and over-the-counter medicine
3. The ongoing epidemic of opioid addiction
4. An aging senior adult population seeking to preserve health and remain as active as possible.

Doctors of Chiropractic are licensed to practice in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The chiropractic profession is the third-largest physician-level independent health profession in the Western world.

While most chiropractors choose to offer care to patients of all ages in a family practice setting, there are specialty areas as part of chiropractic practice, including:

• Sports
• Pediatric
• Animal chiropractic
• Chiropractic research
• Corporate wellness centers
• Department of Veterans Affairs, among other areas.

Challenging Requirements, Rewarding Career

According to Salary.com, the median annual compensation for chiropractors with established practices in the Midwest ranges between $111,000 to $215,000, including bonuses, profit-sharing, or both. Chiropractors usually work a 40-hour work week and report high levels of job satisfaction.

When you become a chiropractor, you are just as likely to have a rewarding career in a small town or rural community as in a big city. Back and neck pain, and headache and other musculoskeletal ailments, are today as commonplace in corporate office settings and small family businesses as in factories and labor-intensive industries. (Read about Drs. Haase and Clausen, who practice in Elkhorn, Neb.)

A recent U.S. News & World Report jobs survey showed chiropractors ranking 19th in the Best Health Care Jobs category.

Become a Doctor of Chiropractic at Cleveland University-Kansas City

Cleveland University-Kansas City (CUKC) is a nonprofit, private, chiropractic and health sciences university in Overland Park, Kansas, a suburb of 190,000 within the Kansas City metro area.

Our chiropractic history started in 1922. Today, more than 11,000 alumni have earned their Doctor of Chiropractic degrees from our College of Chiropractic.

Points of distinction of our D.C. program:

• CUKC students begin learning manual therapy techniques and patient care best practices as early as the first trimester.
• CUKC has an on-campus Technique Simulation Lab, which increases student confidence in the psychomotor skills fundamental for the mastery of chiropractic adjustive technique.
• Senior CUKC chiropractic students intern in the on-campus student and family clinic, then advance to the on-campus public chiropractic clinic, with an opportunity for rotation in the Chiropractic Department of the Kansas City Veterans Affairs Hospital.
• 95% of CUKC graduates pass all parts (I, II, III, IV) of the NBCE exams (National Board of Chiropractic Examiners) within six months of graduation.

To learn more about the Doctor of Chiropractic program at CUKC, request information today and receive our free eBook: Your Complete Guide to the Chiropractic Profession.