I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my experience as a chiropractic resident in the Veterans Administration (VA) health care system and look forward to going to work every day. From the first six months, I have grown in confidence in my clinical skills, experienced and learned from a variety of specialties, and have been encouraged to pursue scholarly and research activities. I often receive questions about the VA chiropractic residency, so I'm sharing the most frequently asked questions and answers based on my experience as a resident at VA Connecticut Healthcare System.

ACA’s annual meeting, the National Chiropractic Leadership Conference, brings you cutting-edge, evidence-based education sessions featuring some of the chiropractic profession’s most respected thought leaders and content experts. Many sessions also offer continuing education credits. Here we pose questions to one of the presenters: John S. Stites, DC, DACBR, DACO, professor and director of community clinics, Palmer College of Chiropractic. His presentation is titled, “Rational Clinical Decisions: The Diagnostic Aspect of Evidence Based Clinical Practice.”

ACA’s annual meeting, the National Chiropractic Leadership Conference, brings you cutting-edge, evidence-based education sessions featuring some of the chiropractic profession’s most respected thought leaders and content experts. Many sessions also offer continuing education credits. Here we pose questions to one of the presenters: Robert Vining, DC, senior research clinician with the Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research. His presentation is, “Rational Clinical Decisions: The Diagnostic Aspect of Evidence-based Clinical Practice.”

For more than a century, chiropractic science—at least as offered by many chiropractors—was frozen in late 19^th century medical thought. Because the founders spoke of “tone” and the “safety-pin cycle,” it became almost a rallying cry for many of the followers. But has chiropractic science advanced since that time, and if so, will chiropractors embrace it? Many of you have read my theory textbooks through the years, but have you kept up with our modern science? There is a new story to tell. The new story is based on solid science that dovetails nicely with science from related healthcare disciplines, and that places [the chiropractic profession] squarely in the middle of interdisciplinary recommendations for conservative spine care and positions us as a substitute for old-school use of opioids and back surgery--instead of putting us out on a ledge, preaching against interdisciplinary care.

While a chiropractic student, I traveled with a group of medical providers to a community in Ghana to provide supplies, assist with health screens in remote villages, and work in a local hospital within a variety of departments. During my time there, I interviewed different community members employed by the hospital or by non-governmental organizations working with the hospital about their perceived health burdens and openness to chiropractic. Unexpectedly, interviewees expressed that while they practiced a Western medicine model, there was some uncertainty on how much that body of knowledge applied to them since they felt so underrepresented in the studies that contributed to that knowledge. The patients and study participants described were rarely people that came from similar geography, cultures, and lifestyles or had physical characteristics they identified with.