The American Chiropractic Association Council on Chiropractic Pediatrics (CCP) recently announced a new diplomate education program focused on pediatric care. The program will include 300 hours of education covering topics such as pediatric development from birth to age 16, adjusting techniques, working diagnosis, clinical application, integrated care and more. Completion of the course will take anywhere from 17 to 24 months, and the hybrid education model will enable participants to complete the work at their own pace.
Development of the diplomate education program has been in the works for several years, with contributions from many members of the CCP, including council president Jennifer Brocker, DC, DICCP. At the helm of course development for this education program are Mary Beth Minser, DC, CACCP, and Kris Tohtz, DC, LAc, educational coordinators for CCP. They agreed that the goal of the new program is to provide education that furthers knowledge of chiropractic pediatrics in an evidence-based, integrative way. “We wanted to make sure that we had something that aligned with ACA’s core principles,” Dr. Tohtz said. “Chiropractic-forward, yes, but scientifically focused.”
Dr. Brocker added, “There was a need for more evidence-informed education [in pediatrics]. I felt like the Council was well positioned to take this on because we had the opportunity to build it from scratch, making it what students and practicing doctors need.”
Topics from Infancy Through Age 16
Dr. Minser shared that the range of content covered was an important consideration as well. “When we think of pediatrics, it’s not just an infancy program, it’s really from infancy to 16 years of age,” she explained. “The program we wanted to develop is based on the whole field of pediatrics in that age group.”
It was important to CCP to develop a comprehensive program for this age range because pediatric care differs from adult care in so many significant ways, especially when it comes to development. “In pediatrics, we are managing a developing person — all the neurological, physical, emotional and cognitive changes that go along with growing from an infant to a young adult,” Dr. Brocker explained. “Modifications need to be made in communication, assessment and the delivery of chiropractic care to fit the age and development of the patient and provide safe and effective care. It’s important to understand all the aspects of development and how chiropractic care can grow with patients as they do.”
The program will benefit practicing doctors and chiropractic students who have an interest in treating the pediatric population. Participants will gain skills to improve their patient care and better position their practices. “People don’t always know what to do with their kids outside of major mainstream medicine,” Dr. Tohtz said. “This program gives [doctors] a niche or specialty.”
Dr. Minser added, “If your practice is focused on children, that sets you apart from maybe another chiropractor who has a specialty in sports medicine. And it builds camaraderie through our profession if we’re referring within the profession.”
Integration and collaboration were also taken into consideration as the CCP developed the diplomate education program. It brings together instructors from a variety of fields and backgrounds to expand participants’ knowledge base. At the time this blog was posted, the program has 31 instructors from the United States, Canada and Europe. Most are doctors of chiropractic, both researchers and clinicians, some of whom hold diplomates in other areas including acupuncture, neurology, internal medicine and radiology. However, the instructor pool also includes other healthcare professionals such as MDs, physical and occupational therapists, naturopaths and dentists.
“We wanted to make sure we were harvesting from the brightest minds of people that we have and that it was integrative,” Dr. Tohtz shared. “As a chiropractic pediatric specialist, you’re going to need integration. We need to be able to speak the language and then talk to the people that are content experts in those areas.”
Pre-recorded and In-person Sessions Included
Though most of the courses will be prerecorded, two in-person sessions will expand on hands-on portions of the material. “People are really busy, so we wanted to make the content available to them and affordable,” Dr. Tohtz said. But the development team knew that not everything could be taught online. This was the motivation for the two in-person sessions that the program will include. Twice over the course of the program, cohorts will gather at one of the chiropractic colleges for an intensive live session that will cover adjusting techniques and other manual skills.
Dr. Tohtz added, “We have to check off that they’re proficient, and we can’t really check proficiency online well for a manual skill. So we wanted to make sure that they had some live time.”
In addition to two in-person sessions, participants will have opportunities to meet online with the program’s instructors. Every few months, the program will host virtual grand rounds with all the instructors and students. This will give students the opportunity to ask questions about the material and learn from their peers. “It’s a nice forum so everyone can bounce back and forth how they might want to treat things, because there’s not always just one way,” Dr. Tohtz said. “The students sometimes learn from the questions that are coming from other people, so they feel like more of a cohort and they’re less isolated.”
Expanding Pediatric Research
Drs. Minser and Tohtz are excited that the diplomate program will also include a research component. “There is some lacking information when it comes to pediatric chiropractic,” Dr. Minser explained. She recently participated in the COURSE Study, an international study seeking to fill knowledge gaps in research relating to pediatric chiropractic treatment. “It was a very easy project to do, and pretty exciting to be involved,” she said. “But you have to know how to treat pediatric patients in order to be involved in those research projects. We want doctors and students [in this program] to be able to go through a case study, to be able to extract information for their clinical application from that case study or from research, or, if they would like, to write up case studies so we can get more published.”
“We feel we could really push pediatric chiropractic to a whole new level having doctors that have this type of knowledge base,” Dr. Minser said. “We just want to be the best pediatric chiropractors that we can be, and this diplomate [education] program helps [us] do that.”
The first program cohort will begin in September 2023. For more information, visit acapedscouncil.org.
Image credit: Charles Parker
