Medical vs Chiropractic education, a Comparison

Pre-professional educational requirements

Depending on the college, the applicant for a Doctor of Chiropractic degree may require as much as a four year bachelor's degree. In most states however, applicants for licensure to any health profession, inter alia, medicine, chiropractic, veterininary, optometry, osteopath.... require only 68 undergraduate credits to obtain a license to practice. In most of these states, those requirements include:

• 1 year of Chemistry with lab
• 1 year of Organic Chemistry with lab
• 1 year of Biology with lab (may substitute anatomy & physiology, or equal).
• 1 year of English

and some states also require,:

• 1 year of Physics; and,
• 1 year of Psychology

Discussion of scheduling

In traditional medical education, course work is arranged in four academic years of 2 semesters each, and the student attends from September through June with Summer off. This is why eight semesters takes four calendar years.
In a traditional chiropractic curriculum, the student goes to classes for three "quarters" each calendar year, and by attending classes all summer, a.- maintains the momentum and b.- completes the equivalent of medical education in less than 3 calendar years. As medical licensure cannot be graned in ay state until ths student completes at elast one Post graduate year a/k/a PGY1 (formerly known as "internship"). The Chiropractic profession to maintain parity, added the "PGY1/internship" into the course work, so that the student has to complete that before being granted a diploma. Thus assuring that Chiropractic students complete PGY1 before obtaining a license. In short, the programs are equivalent in all respects.

Notes

NB: this chart was adapted from a book by David Chapman-Smith, Esq., by Frank Painter, DC.
Please note that the lines with several course titles in them are referring to the total of all hours in each of those subjects, e.g., "Anatomy AND Emryology".

Comparison of graduate courses