Course summary

The McTimoney College of Chiropractic offers an MSc Chiropractic (Paediatrics) programme awarded by Ulster University. The purpose of this three-year, part-time programme is to produce a Chiropractic clinician capable of delivering Chiropractic care to the paediatric population in a safe and effective manner. This includes observing clinical parameters that may require referral to other healthcare professionals while adhering to the rules of the profession and the laws of the country. About the programme The practice of paediatrics, regardless of professional discipline, is based on the dictum that children are unique individuals undergoing the process of human development and not little adults. Paediatrics began to emerge as a medical specialty late in the nineteenth century in response to the growing appreciation that the health problems generally seen in children are different from those affecting the adult population. Chiropractors have treated children in the course of their general practice since the inception of the Chiropractic profession. It is only after a century of Chiropractic care of children that paediatrics is beginning to emerge as a discreet discipline within the wider scope of Chiropractic practice. There is an ever-increasing body of knowledge in chiropractic paediatrics and there continues to be a paucity of training at undergraduate level in the fundamentals of safe paediatric health care practices. The scheme of study is there foreseen as being of major significance and value in providing for those Chiropractors who wish to deliver high quality of care to the paediatric population. It offers a systematic approach to the body of knowledge and an opportunity to participate in the ongoing process of standardisation of the application of that body of knowledge to the individual case presentation. The importance of the safety of the child is inculcated throughout the programme, from medicolegal considerations including the nature of valid consent, failure to inform or warn and safeguarding in the very first module of the programme, through clinical diagnostics, recognition of serious illness and interprofessional referral as the programme continues. The programme therefore enables the practising Chiropractor to identify, in a systematic manner, the boundaries of safe practice and the clinical parameters that identify the need for referral to other health care providers. The programme has been designed with the following two inter-related necessities in mind: The need to meet the stringent academic requirements for qualification at Master level, and The need to provide a course of study which is clinically relevant to the Chiropractor in general practice who regularly consults patients from the paediatric population presenting with a wide range of health problems. As a consequence of the above, a blended clinical education design has been adopted. Summer Schools provides the candidate with an opportunity to be instructed face-to-face and to seek feedback on the quality and correctness of acquired skills, while the coursework offers the candidate an opportunity to apply the acquired skills and clinical knowledge in the practice setting. Throughout the programme, each subject calls upon the candidate to utilise skills and knowledge gained from some or all of the previous subjects undertaken. In particular, the subjects in year 2 require the candidate to apply the skills and knowledge gained in the subjects that collectively make up year 1 of the programme. In making the coursework clinically relevant to the Chiropractor in practice, assigned tasks require the implementation of learned procedures into daily practice routines. This is then supported by the use of clinical case problem solving from data gleaned on actual patients and that provided in hypothetical scenarios. This combination ensures an adequate coverage of the full range of common presentations affecting each body system.