Earlier this year, the University of Pittsburgh announced that the first chiropractic program at a research-intensive public university would commence in fall 2025. Spearheading that decade-long effort: Michael Schneider, DC, PhD, a professor at the university’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and its Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and the chiropractic program’s acting director. In this exclusive interview, Dr. Schneider recounts how the program came to fruition and comments on what it means for the future of chiropractic research, education and the profession’s perception within health care.
How long did it take to bring the DC program to the University of Pittsburgh? The short answer is that it took about 10 years from start to finish. I can give an executive summary of the key milestones over that period of time. The initial idea for a DC program at the University of Pittsburgh began at an Integrative Medicine Conference in Miami during the Spring of 2014. I had dinner with the program officer from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine – a division of the National Institutes of Health – who knew me from several NIH research studies.
He asked me if I had ever considered the idea of starting a DC program at the University of Pittsburgh, and I was taken by surprise because I honestly had never seriously thought about the possibility until that moment.
However, that conversation sparked something inside of me which made me think, This might actually be possible. What followed was a 10-year journey that culminated in the approval of our DC program in March 2024. There were a few bumps in the road toward full approval that I discuss below. Yet I must say it was a pleasant surprise to find virtually no opposition at the University of Pittsburgh to the proposal to establish a new DC program.
Normally, the timeline from initial proposal of a new academic program to full acceptance is about 1-2 years. Why then did it take almost 10 years to get this program approved? There were two major barriers that delayed the approval process: 1) state regulations and scope practice issues, and 2) the COVID-19 pandemic. I will elaborate about the details of these two barriers below.
After submitting the initial paperwork to the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), there was about a 1-2 year administrative process involved with considering this innovative request for a new chiropractic degree at a large public university. Eventually, I was contacted by attorneys from the legal department who said that we “have a problem.”
Upon further discussion, I found out that there was language in the Pennsylvania (PA) Chiropractic Practice Act that explicitly prohibited DCs from delegating any examination or history-taking tasks to “unlicensed personnel.” The Pitt attorneys interpreted this language to include DC students as “unlicensed personnel,” although the intent of this language was meant to apply to chiropractic assistants.
This led to a collaborative effort between myself, Pitt attorneys / lobbyists, and the Pennsylvania Chiropractic Association, to amend the Chiropractic Practice Act and change the language to allow for chiropractic students to train under the supervision of a licensed chiropractor. This process took almost three years and was finally approved unanimously by the PA House and Senate, and subsequently signed into law by the governor of PA [in] June 2018.
The original proposal was now three years old, requiring several updates before being resubmitted for administrative review. I resubmitted a revised proposal around June 2019 and received academic approval for the DC program in December 2019. The next step was a fiscal review and approval process that started in January 2020, which was moving along nicely until the COVID-19 pandemic closed down the University of Pittsburgh and put a halt on all new academic programs.
It would take another three years before things returned to normal at Pitt, at which time I again had to revise the proposal and resubmit the application for a new DC program in June 2023. Finally, the proposal went though all phases of the academic review process and was finally approved by the faculty senate, provost, and chancellor in early 2024.
What will the class size be in the future – particularly compared to other chiropractic programs? Our plans are to start with a small inaugural class of 40 students, starting in the fall semester of 2025. We will increase the class size to a cohort of 60 students enrolling once per year. Our basic education philosophy is “quality, not quantity.” We are a non-profit public university that is not dependent entirely on tuition, which allows us more flexibility in enrollment.
How will the chiropractic program at the University of Pittsburgh increase the overall image of chiropractic? Our new DC program has already captured local, state, and national media attention as the first chiropractic program to be offered by a research-intensive public university in the U.S. This publicity is creating greater awareness [of] and interest in the chiropractic profession. It is also reframing the perception of chiropractic as an evidence-based, mainstream health care profession, rather than a marginalized, alternative health care option.
How will the program impact future chiropractic research – and why is research important to the profession? We are one of the few chiropractic programs in the U.S. that is actively involved in NIH-funded research studies, which promotes an image of our program as an evidence-based and evidence-producing program. The research collaborations that I have fostered over the past 15 years have led to some very specific positive outcomes.
For example, it was through a relationship with researchers that we were able to get chiropractic services integrated into the Pittsburgh VA Hospital and community-based outpatient clinics. Research collaborations with other departments at the University of Pittsburgh have opened up the opportunity for inter-professional clinical observational rounds.
Another good example is a strong research collaboration between our DC program and the Departments of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Pain Medicine. This had led to an offer by the chairs of these departments to allow our DC students to spend time in our Rehabilitation Hospital and Pain Medicine Clinics observing patients with serious neuromuscular disorders and seeing how interprofessional team-based health care is implemented in these clinical settings.
Lastly, it is important for the future of the chiropractic profession to be seen as an evidence-producing leader in the area of spine and musculoskeletal research. This will have a positive impact [on] the public perception of chiropractic as a mainstream, evidence-based health care profession.
Do you anticipate an expansion of chiropractic programs in public universities? Honestly, I am not sure how to answer this question. I would hope that the success here at the University of Pittsburgh will pave the way for other public universities in the U.S. to host DC programs.
It is interesting and encouraging to see that outside of the U.S., most new DC programs are being developed within public universities. Recent examples include the relatively new DC programs at [Teesside] University and London South Bank University in the U.K. Only time will tell if our program at the University of Pittsburgh will stimulate a domino effect across public universities in the U.S.
Thank you, Dr. Schneider. We are pleased to honor you with Dynamic Chiropractic's 2024 Person of the Year award in recognition of your ongoing efforts on behalf of chiropractic education, research and the chiropractic profession.
Editor’s Note: We reported on the new chiropractic program at the University of Pittsburgh in our April 2024 issue. Read “Chiropractic Education Goes Public” for additional information.
