NY Chiropractic College: A tradition in transition

For millions of chronic lower-back-pain sufferers, "the grip of winter" has a near-literal meaning. Lower-back pain is in a group of maladies--ranging from chronic headaches to digestive and circulatory disorders--that conventional Western medicine addresses poorly, if at all. Increasingly, patients whom conventional Western treatments have failed to cure are overcoming their skepticism and are trying "alternative" treatments. One of these alternatives, chiropractic care, is rapidly gaining credibility in a health-care environment driven by cost containment and preventative, minimally invasive care.

Poised to take advantage of chiropractic's rising popularity, and in many ways promoting it, is the northeastern United States' largest chiropractic school, the New York Chiropractic College (NYCC). The college has put itself at the forefront of raising chiropractic's status among the health-care professions. Recent additions of a post-graduate center, more academic and research space, an outpatient clinic, and state-of-the art equipment underscore NYCC's desire to become known, in the words of its communications director, Calvin T. Cobb, as "the premier chiropractic college in the United States."

Early beginnings

The college was called the Columbia Institute of Chiropractic from 1919 to 1976. That year, the newly renamed New York Chiropractic College was granted its provisional charter by the New York State Board of Regents. The charter was made absolute in 1979.

The college has undergone two eras of rapid change and expansion. The first was in the 1960s and '70s, when the demand for chiropractors began to grow and enrollments increased. During that period, the college purchased a larger campus, and opened new outpatient clinics on Long Island, N.Y.

The second major period of change is the one now taking place under the leadership of Dr. Kenneth W. Padgett, the current president of NYCC. Padgett was installed as president shortly after the college acquired the former Eisenhower College, in Seneca Falls, N.Y. The NYCC officially inaugurated its move to the Seneca Falls campus in September 1991.

"Tradition in transition"

Padgett suggested to the college's trustees that the college relocate to Seneca Falls from its Brookville, L.I. campus. That move effectively doubled the size of the college, from 476 students to about 980. It went from being a commuter campus to being a residential campus. "We are the only chiropractic college with residence halls," Padgett says. But, he adds, "The thing I am most proud of is taking NYCC to a higher level of education. It has changed from a school to a real college and a degree granting program." Padgett points to other examples of NYCC's pre-eminence, such as the three outpatient clinics, the research facilities, and a recently opened career-development center. "The career-development center," says Padgett, "is something that puts us light years ahead of the rest of the chiropractic institutions."

NYCC today

According to Padgett, chiropractic spinal adjustment hasn't changed much over the years. "It is still a hands-on procedure," he says. What has changed, however, is the range of diagnostic equipment that is now routinely used in chiropractic treatment. "The diagnostic equipment is more high-tech," Padgett says, adding, "We use MRIs, catscans...versus just using flat film X-rays."

The college's anatomy department and prosection theater are similarly high-tech. The prosection theater has two video cameras and several monitors that are used to preview the day's dissection for the students. The anatomy facility includes a cold storage for cadavers, an X-ray machine, three preparation rooms, an embalming room, three faculty offices, and a conference room. Dr. John DeCicco, dean of academic affairs, says, "Our gross-anatomy program and faculty are comparable in quality to most of the better medical colleges."

The college also pursues publication in health-care-related journals through the efforts of its research department. Its function is to provide opportunities for the continuing investigation of chiropractic and other health-related theories and practice. Current research at the college focuses primarily on human-performance analysis (including "gait" studies), clinical trials, educational and sociological research, and basic sciences. The research is carried out at the main campus as well as in the college's three outpatient facilities in Levittown, N.Y. (Long Island), Syracuse, and Cheektowaga, a suburb of Buffalo. The outpatient health center in Syracuse offers low-cost or free chiropractic care to residents of the YWCA women's shelter. The outpatient facilities provide ninth- and tenth-trimester students the clinical resources necessary to provide outpatient care and fulfill their clinical requirement for graduation.

NYCC's research director, Ronald Bulbulian, Ph.D. has high ambitions for NYCC's research program. He expects NYCC's research to be publishable within a year, allowing about two years for "significant research, the kind that really makes an impact," to become publishable. His goals include transforming NYCC's faculty to think of NYCC as a research institution, and tapping into federal research agencies, "which have the deepest pockets." Bulbulian says NYCC has its foot in the door with a variety of research projects for the federal Department of Health and Human Services. "The projects have to do with national health care, and chiropractic has a role to play in that area," Bulbulian asserts.

Career-development help

As good a job as NYCC does training its graduates in chiropractic, changes in the health-care industry have made the field much more complex than it used to be. Chiropractors are now trying to figure out how to fit into the managed-care, competitive environment that prevails. And NYCC's graduates, like other novices in the field, need all the help they can get. The NYCC Career Development Center, which opened this fall, tries to meet this need.

According to the center's director, Fred Zuccala, "The center is a resource available to students and graduates regarding practice management, HMOs, insurance, and employment opportunities." The center offers Internet-linked job listings through the Chiropractic Career Network. A Career Services Library maintains a data network of state-association newsletters, student and doctor membership applications, scopes of practice, licensing requirements, doctor contacts, and even demographics delineating patient- and doctor-population densities in various states.

The career center also provides counseling, both in groups and one- to-one. Topics cover writing resumes, locating an associateship, and starting a solo practice. But the center also will serve as a feedback mechanism by which the college can gauge its own success or failure. According to Fred Zuccala, "We also want to keep in constant contact with the doctors interested in looking for associates, and ask them, 'Did you interview anyone from NYCC? If yes, did you hire them? If you didn't, why not?' And, hopefully, we will be able to keep in touch with our graduates, when they're out in the real world, and ask them, 'What could we have done better? What could we do to improve the NYCC curriculum and educational experience?'"

Financing for the future

If NYCC's graduates respond to Zuccala's questions by saying that NYCC needs additional facilities and expanded infrastructure, the college's provost, G. Lansing Blackshaw, says that that would not present any problems. "From a business point of view, NYCC is well managed," Blackshaw states. "When the time comes to make some major capital investment, we don't believe it is going to be a problem getting that attention from lending institutions." Blackshaw adds, "We have been able in the last few years to generate an operating surplus. The money gets used for reinvestment. It puts us in a good position to go out and do a major project here; we can go out and float a bond issue based on our financial history."

Blackshaw summarizes NYCC's philosophy thus: "If we are going to try and advance the profession, educationally and research-wise, we just need to do these things. We cannot stand still and say we're big enough and our curriculum is good enough--we need to move ahead. I don't think it's shameful to want to be ahead of the pack."

Quick Facts: New York Chiropractic College

Founded: 1919, in New York City

Location: 2360 State Route 89, Seneca Falls, N.Y. 13148; a 286-acre site on the shores of Caqyuga Lake

Students: 980, from more than 20 states and several foreign countries; 30 percent are women; range in age from 21 to over 55, with the largest age group being in their mid-20s; 65 percent have a baccalaureate or higher degree

Minimum admission requirements: 75 college credits, including 24 in the sciences

Faculty: 85 faculty members, out of a total of about 200 employees

Course-work: 10 trimesters over 40 months of continuous study; includes 5,000+ hours of internship at one of three clinics

Student activities: intramural sports and student government; more than 20 student organizations specializing in sports injuries, nutrition, research, and publications

Tuition: $4,380 per trimester.

Copyright Central New York Business Journal Dec 09, 1996
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