We feel Pat represents the portion of scientific research that is finding chiropractic an exciting frontier, said FCER President George B. McClelland, D.C., as he conferred the foundation's "1992 Researcher of the Year" award on Dr. Patricia Brennan during the International Conference on Spinal Manipulation (ICSM) in Chicago, May 15-17.
The award is part of FCER's commitment to recognize and honor leaders in the field of chiropractic research.
Currently the dean of research at National College of Chiropractic (NCC) in Lombard, Illinois, Dr. Brennan is actively involved with the Practice Consultants' Clinical Research Center. She has published the results of her work in more than 100 articles and abstracts in peer-reviewed literature.
Dr. Brennan supervised the research team of the soon-to-be published pilot study, "Pain and Prostaglandin Levels in Dysmenorrheic Women Following Spinal Manipulation" (see November 8, 1991 issue of "DC"). The major funding for this research came from NCC with grant support from the FCER.
She was also a recipient of supplemental funding from FCER for her study, "Quantitative Dog Model for Spinal Hypomobility: A Demonstration." Dr. Brennan's objective was to develop a non-traumatic, reproducible, quantifiable model for the reduction of spinal mobility, and to correlate this reduction with endocrine and inflammatory cell changes over time.
Dr. Brennan holds her Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from Loyola University in Chicago. She joined the faculty of NCC in 1985, after spending four years in research and development at Packard Instrument Company. Prior to that, she spent 18 years at Argonne National Laboratory as a research scientist.
When I graduated from chiropractic college in 1981 and started practice, I heard it all, and very little was positive. “You are a quack; you do not know what a subluxation is; you couldn’t get into a real health care program, so you chose the one that is slightly above a mail-order degree; you have no proof that chiropractic works; Are you really licensed?”, and so much more.
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