News

What's making headlines in the world of Chiropractors.

From left to right: Donato Policastro (vice-president), Dr. Deborah Kopansky-Giles, Luciano Di Loreto (president), Stephanie Parker (physiotherapy student) and Jessica Wong (communications director).

Students Opening Doors to Interprofessional Collaboration

Since last year, when Canadian Chiropractor readers were first introduced to the CMCC student club “Building Bridges,” the club, in its second year of existence, has established a number of interprofessional events that have been monumental to the advancement of collaboration between chiropractic and other health-care professions. 
Building Bridges is a student-run group that aims to enhance interprofessional education (IPE) and relations among all health-care professions with the emphasis on academic initiatives that link the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (CMCC) with other health-care programs in the Toronto area. This past year the club organized many firsts: 

• CMCC held its pilot “student exchange” program with the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. Throughout the month of April, this program provided 14 students – seven from each profession – the opportunity to spend a day at the other school.  The program utilized a buddy system that partnered a chiropractic student with a medical student throughout the program. This successful initiative has sparked interest in opening this opportunity to a larger group of students every year, as well as the possibility of including more professions in the exchange.

• On April 12, 2008, the club also helped organize the inaugural interprofessional seminar between CMCC, Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine (CCNM) and University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine. The event involved over
60 students – approximately 20 students per profession – gathered at CCNM to listen to a number of guest speakers, enjoy lunch, visit workshops and discuss interesting patient cases together in problem-based learning sessions.  This event united students of naturopathy, chiropractic and medicine to learn about current and future opportunities for collaboration, in both the clinical and research capacity.  Once again, this IPE seminar received ample positive feedback and will now be established as an annual event.

• At the residency level, there are a number of events that increase IPE presence among the chiropractic residents and faculty of the school.  Most notably, residents Dr. Alex Lee and Dr. Janey Jim delivered talks to health science students at the University of Toronto through various lunch health talks, and a display booth at Pain Week also at the  University of Toronto. Dr. Kopansky-Giles, associate professor at CMCC, also delivered a talk to University of Toronto second-year physiotherapy students. These talks served as an introduction to chiropractic for other health science students. 

• At the student level, strides have been made to affiliate the student club with other interprofessional organizations. Luciano Di Loreto, president of Building Bridges, and Jessica Wong, the club’s communications director, have been elected as executives to the Inter Professional Health Science Association (IPHSA), the IPE student group based at the University of Toronto. This group further facilitates collaboration and paves the way for a very promising future.  CMCC students have assisted in the restructuring of IPHSA’s existing constitution in order to create a new IPE student group, which includes chiropractic and 10 other professional health science programs. This new IPE group, to be implemented by September 2009, will advocate for the inclusion of equal representation across professions in future IPE events.

Beginning in September 2009, an even stronger version of the student club will emerge, as Building Bridges, along with the Interprofessional Committee of the Student Canadian Chiropractic Association,  will launch a new cohesive constitution to incorporate faculty mentors. Faculty mentors are CMCC faculty members, with a strong interest in advancing IPE, who will formally sit on the club’s board of directors.  Currently, faculty mentors include Dean Lenore Edmunds, Drs. Deborah Kopansky-Giles and Igor Steiman. Acting as advising members for the club, these faculty supporters will connect the IPE work of the students with those at the faculty level, ensuring continuity and cohesiveness in the collective vision of the two parties. Together, they will advance IPE to the next level for chiropractic, and ensuring chiropractic’s inclusion in IPE events and programs across Canada. 

North American Spine Society Meeting in Toronto
The North American Spine Society’s 23rd Annual Meeting is being held October 14-18, 2008, in Toronto, Canada, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.  This year’s meeting will have more presentations than ever before: 105 podium presentations, 92 SIPPs (Special Interest Paper Presentations) and 189 E-Posters. 

Some of the top abstracts topics include:

• Clinical Instinct vs. Standardized Questionnaire: The Spine Specialists Ability to Detect Psychological Distress
• Predominant Leg Pain is Associated with Better Surgical Outcomes in Degenerative Spondylolisthesis and Spinal Stenosis
• Radiographic Predictors of Clinical Outcomes Following Operative or Non-Operative Treatment of Degenerative Spondylolisthesis
• Outcome of Lumbar Fusion in Patients Over 65 Years Old
• Lumbar Fusion Outcomes Stratified by Specific Diagnostic Indication
• Outcomes Based on a Low Back Pain Classification System

Other topics in spine care will be presented during symposia, which are always a favorite offering at the NASS Annual Meeting. The symposia topics will cover a variety of subjects to reflect NASS’ multidisciplinary membership: The Socioeconomic Sport of Spine Care, Lessons Learned from Disc Arthroplasty, Applying Evidence-based Medicine Into Your Practice and Perioperative Management of Spine Surgery. To see the latest products in spine care first-hand, visit the Exhibit Hall, which will have more than 220 exhibiting companies.

Tim Saunders, author of the New York Times bestseller The Likeability Factor: How to Boost Your L-Factor and Achieve the Life of Your Dreams, will give the Keynote Address. Saunders advocates for an honest, ethical analysis of business realities with a straightforward program for improvement.

The Presidential Speaker will be Lou Holtz, one of the most successful college football coaches of all time; most notably at Notre Dame. Holtz has written three New York Times best selling motivational books and he is currently a college football studio analyst on ESPN.

The specialty educational tracks and pre-meeting educational course sections are back by popular demand. These tracks will consist of special symposia and SIGs (Special Interest Group discussions). The sections on Spine Biologics and Research and Motion Technology information on developments in spine care were highly-rated and had standing room only in 2007. Drs. Jeffrey Wang and Michael Zindrick, the course chairs, intend to provide more cutting-edge information on developments in spine care.

To learn more about the North American Spine Society’s 23rd Annual Meeting and for instructions on how to register, please visit www.spine.org.

$2,000 Scholarship for Canadian Students
The Parker College of Chiropractic is proud to announce a new scholarship for Canadian chiropractic students.  All new Canadian students referred by a Canadian DC. will receive two thousand dollars to apply to their education.
“This incredible scholarship opportunity, combined with the high value of the Canadian dollar, makes a first-class chiropractic education very affordable for Canadian students,” said Dr. Fabrizio Mancini, president of Parker College. “We already have a strong Canadian presence among our students, and we look forward to increasing that presence in the future.”

Parker College of Chiropractic, located in Dallas, Texas, is one of the country’s leading educators of health-care professionals with an international student enrollment. Founded in 1982, this private, non-profit educational institution prepares men and women to become doctors of chiropractic.  Parker College of Chiropractic is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award the bachelor of science and doctor of chiropractic degrees. 

If you care to refer any current or potential student, please contact Kara Holliday, Assistant Director of
Admissions at  kholliday@parkercc.edu  or 1-800-438-6932 x7005

Dr. Côté becomes Associate Professor at U of T
Dr. Pierre Côté, DC, PhD,  has been named associate professor with the Department of Public Health Sciences in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. 

Dr. Côté’s appointment became effective on July 1, 2008, and represents a remarkable achievement for a chiropractic researcher.  His promotion to associate professor is reflective of the contribution he has made to the field of epidemiology.  The focus of Dr. Côté’s research has been the epidemiology of disability related to musculoskeletal pain and depression, including the impact of health-care delivery on the recovery of soft-tissue injuries. 

Dr. Côté is also a member of the Scientific Secretariat of the 2000-2010 Bone and Joint Decade Task Force on Neck Pain and its Associated Disorders.

CCRF/CIHR Chiropractic Research Chair to Dr. Jason Busse
Dr. Jason Busse has been awarded the prestigious CCRF/CIHR Chiropractic Research Chair.  This is a five-year award representing a partnership between the Canadian Chiropractic Research Foundation and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Dr. Busse is currently involved in the Health Research Methodology Program in McMaster University’s Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics.  In 2007, Dr. Busse was co-author of four book chapters and had 16 papers either submitted or accepted for publication.  He is currently involved in three research projects as co-
investigator.  He is also principal investigator for: “Exploring Predictors for Prolonged Recovery Following Acceptance for Disability Benefits: A Systematic Review.”

Quebec chiropractor competes in Beijing

Dr. Richard Dober Jr., a chiropractor from Trois Rivières, Que., has qualified to represent Canada in Beijing as a competitor in the kayak events scheduled for Aug. 18 to 23. 

Dober, a graduate of the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières chiropractic program, is no novice to competition and has trained vigorously since his participation, four years ago, in the Olympic games at Athens, Greece.  In 2004, Dober placed ninth  in the men’s K-4 1,000-metre kayak race and 16th, rowing with Andrew Willows, in the men’s K-2 500-metre race.  Earlier this year, Willows and Dober were world cup champions in both Duisburg, Germany, and Szeged, Hungary, thereby garnering a place on the Canadian team bound for Beijing.  Dober, once again partnered with Willows, joins Olympic competitors in the K-2 500-metre event – which he considers to be his specialty.  
Dober has been immersed in a competitive athletic mindset since childhood – his parents were both competitive athletes and he has been following in these footsteps from a very young age.  He has been involved in canoeing since the age of two and won his first provincial victory at the tender age of 11.  He also follows in the professional footsteps of his father, Dr. Richard Dober Sr., who is a chiropractor – still in practice in Trois-Rivières – as well.  (Dober’s sister, Ingrid, is soon to be a graduate of the UQTR chiropractic program as well.)

Twenty-seven-year-old Dober told the Montreal newspaper, La Presse, of the rigours of his training for the Beijing games, which involved several hours a week of rowing on the frozen St. Lawrence River from February to April while finishing his chiropractic studies.  He considers the 500-metre race to be the event in which he, and his partner, are strongest, and he wishes to concentrate on reaching his full potential in this event, prior to branching out into other subspecialties within the sport of kayaking.  Dober is optimistic that, in the K-2 500-metre race, the teamwork strategy that he and Willows have come to employ will help them realize their goal of becoming Olympic medallists. 
 Dober told La Presse, “As Andrew is in the habit of saying, ‘shoot for the moon, at the very least, you will capture a star.’”

Canadian Chiropractor joins the Dober family, as well as the Ordre des Chiropraticiens  du Québec, in congratulating Richard Dober Jr. on his accomplishment in qualifying for the Beijing Olympic games.  We are very proud of you! 
For updates and details on Dr. Dober in Beijing, be sure to visit www.cndoctor.ca.

Dr. Eisenberg confirmed for WFC Congress
The World Federation of Chiropractic and Canadian Chiropractic Association are pleased to announce that Dr. David Eisenberg of Harvard University is confirmed as a keynote speaker for the WFC’s 10th Biennial Congress in Montreal, April 30 to May 2, 2009.

Dr. Eisenberg, the Harvard graduate and internist who is internationally famous for his scientific articles concerning the growth and integration of complementary and alternative medicine in health care, will speak on A Model of Integrative Care Involving Chiropractic and Allopathic Doctors at a Harvard Teaching Hospital.

Dr. Eisenberg currently serves as Director of the Osher Research Center at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  In 1979, under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences, he served as the first US medical exchange student to the People’s Republic of China. In 1993 he was the medical advisor to the PBS series Healing and the Mind with Bill Moyers.

More recently, Dr. Eisenberg served as an advisor to the US National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration and Federation of State Medical Boards with regard to complementary, alternative and integrative medicine research, education and policy.  From 2003 to 2005 Dr. Eisenberg served on a National Academy of Sciences Committee responsible for the Institute of Medicine Report titled The Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine by the American Public.

The WFC Congress is titled Celebrating Chiropractic in the 21st Century and one theme relates to integrated care.  Other speakers on this theme include:

• Scott Haldeman, DC MD PhD on the BJD Neck Pain Task Force and its new model of management of neck pain.
• Andrew Dunn, DC MSc on chiropractic practice in the military and veterans’ health care systems in the USA.
• Amy Freedman, MD and Brian Gleberzon, DC on seniors’ quality of life.
• Francis Fontaine, DC MD on practical aspects of inter-
referral of patients in medical and chiropractic practice.
• Robert Armitage, DC and Jack Taunton, MD on integration of chiropractic in the sports medicine team at the Olympic level.

The Congress also features tracks on technique, philosophy and original research.  Highlights of the social program include an opening reception, a Thursday night cultural dinner and show and the Saturday night Gala Banquet and Dance.

All information is at www.wfc.org/congress2009. Mark the dates now – April 30 to May 2, 2009 – and be there to see why the WFC congress is now recognized as the most exciting event in the chiropractic world.