A chiropractic program consists of 4 academic years of professional education averaging a total of 4,822 hours, and ranging from 4,400 hours to 5,220 hours. This includes an average of 1,975 hours in clinical sciences and 1,405 hours of clinical clerkship. The minimum hours for accreditation by the Council on Chiropractic Education is 4,200 hours.
The program of study at all chiropractic schools is divided into Basic and Clinical Sciences. The average total number of basic science contact hours is 1,420, which accounts for 30 percent of the entire chiropractic program. Basic sciences education includes an average of 570 hours of anatomy (40 percent of all basic science hours), 305 hours of physiology (21 percent), 205 hours of pathology (14 percent), 150 hours of biochemistry (11 percent), 120 hours of microbiology (8 percent), and 70 hours of public health (5 percent).
On average, 70 percent of the program is composed of clinical education. Chiropractic schools devote an average of 3,380 contact hours to clinical education: 1,975 hours (58 percent) are spent in chiropractic clinical sciences and the remaining 1,405 hours (42 percent) are spent in clinical clerkships. These contact hours are in lectures, laboratories, and clinics. Table 5 shows the distribution of hours in these three settings for both basic and clinical sciences.
The following is a link to:
Chiropractic in the United States: Training, Practice, and Research
This project was supported by grant number HSO7915 from the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research.