When sports chiropractors first appeared at the Olympic Games in the 1980s, it was alongside individual athletes who had experienced the benefits of chiropractic care in their training and recovery processes at home. Fast forward to Paris 2024, where chiropractic care was available in the polyclinic for all athletes, and the attitude has now evolved to recognize that “every athlete deserves access to sports chiropractic."
A First for Chiropractic -- Research Director at a University Hospital
David Cassidy, D.C., FCCS, M.Sc., was appointed research director at the department of Orthopedics, Royal University Hospital, within the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Dr. Cassidy will also be working in the capacity of research associate with the university.
As research director, Dr. Cassidy will be responsible for supervising orthopedic research and funding at Saskatchewan's Royal University Hospital. This is the first instance of a chiropractor directing a research budget at a major university teaching hospital.
Dr. Cassidy is perhaps best known for his interdisciplinary research with such notables as Kirkaldi-Willis, MD, (e.g., Spinal manipulation in the treatment of low-back pain, Can Fam Physician 31:535-540, 1985).
Since 1976, Dr. Cassidy has been a chiropractic consultant and researcher at the University of Saskatchewan, where he is a Ph.D. candidate in orthopedic pathology. He currently is working on a number of research projects at the university: range of motion and disability in the lumbar spine; epidemiology and treatment of whiplash; back pain in children; rib cage deformity in scoliosis; distal-radial fractures; and alternate surgical procedures to the humerus, among other projects.
Dr. Cassidy is a 1975 graduate of the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (CMCC), and received his FCCS postgraduate degree from that college also. Both his B.Sc. (1982) and his M.Sc. in orthopedics (1986) were from the University of Saskatchewan.
He is a member of the Quebec government's Task Force on Whiplash Injuries; the research council of the World Federation of Chiropractic (WFC); the international multidisciplinary board of the Physical Medicine Research Foundation; the rehabilitation, biomechanical and biomedical engineering section review board for the Canadian government's National Health Research and Development program; and the chiropractic profession examining board at the University of Saskatchewan.
Dr. Cassidy is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, the Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association, and The Back Lettter.
He is active in association activities, holding memberships in the Canadian Chiropractic Association, the Chiropractors' Association of Saskatchewan, the American Chiropractic Association, North American Spine Society, American Back Society, the American Public Health Association (APHA), College of Chiropractic Sciences, International Association for the Study of Pain, and American Association of Clinical Anatomists.
Among his numerous awards are the Chiropractic Association of Saskatchewan's 1980 "Chiropractor of the Year"; "Best Scientific Paper" at the 1980 Haldeman Interprofessional Conference on the Spine; 1986 "Research Award" from the International Chiropractors Association; Canadian Chiropractic Association Research Award 1992; and the Homewood Memorial Professorship, Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College 1992-3.
Dr. Cassidy has received numerous research grants from the Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research, the Chiropractor's Assoc. of Saskatchewan, the Depart. of Health, government of Saskatchewan, Chiropractors' Association of Saskatchewan, and the Chiropractic Foundation for Spinal Research, among others.
Dr. Cassidy has published a prolific outpouring of over 70 journal articles and has contributed chapters to such textbooks as Managing Low Back Pain, Modern Developments in the Principles and Practice of Chiropractic, and Conservative Management Decisions in Treatment of Scoliosis; and has published eight abstracts in the Journal of Bone Joint Surgery.
Congratulations go to Dr. Cassidy for his notable accomplishments, and for advancing chiropractic into this new realm.