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Newsletter of the European Chiropractors’ Union
Covid-19
the consequence that capacity is reduced to
between 40% (IFEC), 66% (AECC) and
70% (WIOC) but supplemented by telehealth
appointments for those at risk.
• Barcelona reported a slow start when the
clinic re-opened, followed by a rapid upsurge
when it became apparent that the clinic was
safer to visit than the local hospital A&E/
emergency departments.
• No reduction in patient waiting lists was
reported.
• Upper back and neck pain complaints after
working from home during lockdown appear
to be increasing
The effects on students
With campuses closed most students went
home – often facing 14 days’ quarantine – and
followed the online courses.
• Contact with students became a pressing issue
with faculty concerned that loneliness and
anxiety would affect them. Significant extra
effort went into pastoral care, including a
manned telephone hotline open 24/7 at BCC
and at Teesside University, food delivery was
arranged for those of its 18,000 students in
university-recognised accommodation.
• Seminar discussions critiquing the use
of technique helped maintain a sense of
belonging.
• The SDU reports that a significant challenge
in the immediate future will be to improve
student well-being and maintain their
motivation to avoid drop-out rates rising if
there is a second wave of the pandemic.
• The improved intensity of communication
with students brought immediate benefits. In
some cases feedback suggested that previous
perceived remoteness of faculty was reduced,
and relationships moved closer to that of
mentor and pupil.
Managing graduation
Most institutions involved the student body in
deciding how to handle graduation.
• In some cases, graduation was simply
postponed until it is safer (IFEC, WIOC and
AECC). In others, ceremonies were virtual,
leaving celebration events to be organised at a
later date (SDU, RCU, LSBU).
• Only in Barcelona was the traditional
graduation ceremony held, though on a
severely restricted basis which allowed only
45 of the 250 places to be occupied and with
the event live streamed for guests.
Positive change for the future
The use of online resources and attention to
students’ wellbeing have produced positive
results.
• The switch to online teaching of theory is
expected to continue in the future (SDU,
WIOC) at least to some extent (BCC).
• An unexpected benefit is that institutions
may be more inclined to invite teachers with
specific knowledge from around the world to
give online lectures (SDU).
• The role of faculty may move closer to being
mentors and coaches.
• Weaker lecturers will become more exposed.
An important lesson is that production
values for online sessions will only need to be
good enough; television and film production
values have been shown to be unnecessary
• Students will have greater freedom to study
for a significant part of the time from
anywhere in the world. Universities with
marketing operations in the Far East and
the Asian sub-continent may be attractive to
chiropractic students.
However, increased demands on time for the
supervision of practical classes may squeeze the
available time for research.
Possible developments in
course content
Course content will need to be responsive to
changing public health advice, particularly on
disease prevention and clinical hygiene.
• There will be some scope for re-purposing
physical space due to the switch to online
teaching.
• The pandemic has made faculty question
why things are done in a certain way and has
raised the awareness of flexibility (AECC);
innovation will be accelerated (Teesside).
It will bring into further focus the debate
between courses built around traditional
contact hours and those more weighted
towards competencies, opening up new
possibilities in conversion courses and parttime
courses.
• National governments are likely to press for
lower cost and speedier university courses
more generally.
• Nutrition, a healthy lifestyle, disease
prevention and a contribution to the quality
of life are likely to feature in future courses
(UCLAN). However, all the institutions
interviewed agreed that there is no scientific
evidence that chiropractic adjustment boosts
the immune system.
• There may be more emphasis on life events,
the human life cycle and the care of different
generations.
Early indications are that the demand
for chiropractic education may rise as a
consequence of the higher profile for health
care workers during the pandemic, and possibly
the perception of the profession as taking the
strain off other hard-pressed parts of the health
care system.
But SDU and WIOC add words of caution:
some of the spike in interest may be a shortterm
phenomenon connected with the decrease
in travel, fewer young people going on gap year
voyages and higher unemployment as a result
of Covid-19.
The ECCE has postponed planned re-accreditation visits
to WIOC and Barcelona
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