01-32 Backspace Oct20-FINAL-WEB

Newsletter of the European Chiropractors’ Union
Research
Valedictory
thoughts
Bruce Walker, editor-inchief
of Chiropractic and
Manual Therapies, requires
little introduction. He steps
down later this year and BACKspace took the
opportunity to seek his valedictory thoughts
Highlights of the past
30 years?
BEING IN full time practice
for 30 years allowed me
to treat approximately 35,000
people and deliver about 100,000
consultations. I hope and trust
that I was able to help the
majority of those people with
their musculoskeletal problems.
I was a relative late-comer to
academia, but during my 15 years
at Murdoch University, I was
fortunate to pass the 100 peerreview
article milestone and have
my work cited over 3,500 times.
I hope that my memory will be
my commitment to chiropractic
via the creation of COCA (now
Chiropractic Australia), the
promotion of evidence-based
practice and the establishment of
Chiropractic & Manual Therapies.
Development of the
Journal?
I started the Journal in 1992 with
a small team of chiropractors and
osteopaths in Australia, and it
later became a fully peer-reviewed
journal. We developed as a joint
venture with the ECU and the
Royal College of Chiropractors,
and later with NIKKB, moving to
online publication in 2005. Our
plan was to achieve MEDLINE
listing and an Impact Factor (IF),
reaching both goals with the initial
IF of 1.5 earlier this year. So far,
the journal has been accessed over
4.6 million times since 2005. I
am confident that under the new
leadership of Iben Axén and Simon
French it will continue progress
with bigger and better things.
Progress towards the
10-point plan you
proposed for the
profession in 2016?
The article detailing the plan was
published in CMT in 2016. I
believe that the plan still holds
true today. Progress has been
agonisingly slow, but I predict
that within 50 years the profession
will be vastly different from today.
There has been a greater shift
towards evidence-based practice.
The most pressing
scientific question
and the next research
landmark?
The most pressing question is
what are the markers that predict
response to spinal manipulation
for spinal pain? Regarding research,
in the 10 years between 2010 and
2019, PUBMED documents 3,276
articles involving chiropractic
compared to 173,000 articles
about physiotherapy. We urgently
need much more high-quality
chiropractic research to boost our
international standing.
Final thoughts?
I encourage all chiropractors
to continue serving the public
and to put their patients first, to
volunteer for the advancement of
the profession, to acknowledge
good practice when they see it
and to call out poor practice when
they witness that. I encourage all
to embrace the three elements
of evidence-based practice, i.e.
best scientific evidence, clinical
expertise and patient values and
circumstances.
Essentials of Veterinary
Chiropractic for Equine
and Companion Animals
Practice-oriented intensive training,
excellent practical and theoretical lessons,
presented in five modules over a period of
six months, with experienced international
faculty of veterinarians and chiropractors,
offered in the UK since 2005.
Upcoming Course Start Dates:
Bournemouth, UK,
AECC University College
» April 7th, 2021
Sittensen/Northern Germany
(language of instruction: English)
» October 7th, 2020
» March 10th, 2021
Further information and module dates:
www.i-a-v-c.com
INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF VETERINARY CHIROPRACTIC
Dr. Donald Moffatt (MRCVS)
Dorfstr. 17, 27419 Freetz, Germany
info@i-a-v-c.com or give us a call +49 4282 590099
Associated with the AECC University College and
recognized by the Royal College of Chiropractors.
IAVC certification includes external validation from the
internationally recognized Veterinary Society of Chiropractic (VSC).
BACKspace www.chiropractic-ecu.org October 2020 11
01-32 Backspace Oct20.indd 11 08/10/2020 19:11