Welcome to Palmer College of Chiropractic, The Trusted Leader in Chiropractic Education®.
As you read through this catalog, you’ll discover a great deal about the founding institution of chiropractic, our campuses and the exciting career that awaits you as a future Palmer graduate.
Whether you plan to attend our campus in Davenport, Iowa or Port Orange, Fla.; Palmer College is proud to offer learning opportunities that are challenging, interactive and delivered by faculty who are among the best in the profession.
The College clinic system delivers approximately 130,000 patient visits every year, and Palmer is home to the largest chiropractic research center in the U.S. and the profession’s most extensive chiropractic library. Whichever campus you select, you’ll have access to some of the most advanced technology in classrooms and health centers.
Additionally, the Palmer Center for Business Development offers free learning modules, online resources and a professional network dedicated to promoting business skills and entrepreneurship among our students and alumni.
All of this adds up to greater access to information and more opportunities for skill development, which give Palmer graduates greater opportunities for success in the profession.
When you graduate, you’ll join a distinguished group of more than 30,000 practicing Palmer alumni, who comprise more than one-third of all Doctor of Chiropractic in the United States. Our Continuing Education program provides chiropractors the opportunity for continued growth in contemporary clinical practices. We’re pleased to educate the next generation of chiropractic leaders who will build the health communities of tomorrow.
We invite you to visit one of our campuses to talk with our faculty, staff and students. To schedule a campus tour or obtain more information about any aspect of the College’s educational programs, please visit www.palmer.edu/campusvisit, call our toll-free number: 800-722-3648, or email admissions.ia@palmer.edu. We look forward to seeing you at Palmer College of Chiropractic.
Chiropractic
The chiropractic profession was founded in 1895 by D.D. Palmer. In 1897, the Palmer School of Chiropractic, which would later become Palmer College of Chiropractic, was started.
Chiropractic is a health care profession that focuses on the spine and other joints of the body, their connection to the nervous system, and overall patient health. Doctors of Chiropractic are primary care doctors who specialize in spinal health and well-being, maximizing patient function through conservative care.
The chiropractic student, during five rigorous academic years of study, normally completed in three-and-one- third calendar years, is trained to know all structures and functions of the human body and to recognize the interrelationship of all parts.
Chiropractic education centers on the concept of health, not disease. Chiropractors provide a highly appealing primary health care approach because they don’t perform surgery or prescribe medicine.
Chiropractic is increasingly sought as the public’s demand for health maintenance grows.
Upon receiving the Doctor of Chiropractic Degree, most graduates enter private practice. Others may elect to become an associate of an established chiropractor or other integrative, multi-disciplinary practice or work within the military, while some may decide to enter chiropractic education in a teaching, research or administrative capacity. No matter the choice, the individual is a participant in and contributor to the world’s health care delivery system. An estimated 50 million Americans see a chiropractor each year, according to a Gallup study.
The College has developed and refined its guiding documents over the years, which provide the institution with principles to guide its actions as well as set high standards for excellence and achievement. These documents are approved by the Board of Trustees and are thoughtfully updated as circumstances require.
Identity Statement
The primary care professional for spinal health and well-being.
Chiropractic Pillars
Doctors of Chiropractic:
- Integrate evidence, clinical experience, and patient values and preferences
- Deliver expert chiropractic adjustments, manipulation and other manual care
- Embody a tradition of caring, effectiveness and patient satisfaction
- Collaborate and coordinate care with other health professionals
- Enhance patient quality of life and performance
- Promote vitality, wellness and patient empowerment
- Improve quality of life without drugs or surgery
- Offer readily accessible care
Mission
The mission of Palmer College of Chiropractic is to promote learning, deliver health care, engage our communities and advance knowledge through research.
Vision
Palmer College of Chiropractic strives to be The Trusted Leader in Chiropractic Education.®
Values
The Values of the Palmer College Community include:
- Academic excellence
- Business acumen
- Clinical Excellence
- Collaboration
- Communication
- Community health
- Critical thinking
- Diversity
- Evidence-based chiropractic practice
- Heritage and tradition
- Justice, ethics and integrity
- Life-long learning
- Student Success
Philosophy Statement
Chiropractic is a science, art and philosophy. The philosophy of chiropractic is built upon the constructs of vitalism, holism, conservatism, naturalism and rationalism. It provides context for the application of science and art.
Health is a state of optimal physical, emotional and social well-being. Central to the philosophy of chiropractic is the principle that life is intelligent. This innate intelligence strives to maintain a state of health through adaptation mechanisms. The nervous system is recognized as an avenue for these self-regulating processes. Interference with neurological function can impede these mechanisms, disrupt homeostatic balance and adversely impact health. Chiropractic posits that subluxation of the spinal column and other articulations can affect nervous system function and the expression of health, which may result in symptoms, infirmity and disease. The understanding of the subluxation complex continues to progress from D.D. Palmer’s early writings about misalignment of vertebrae and other articulating structures to include additional anatomical, physiological, biomechanical, chemical and biopsychosocial factors.
Practice Paradigm
Chiropractic focuses on neurological and musculoskeletal integrity, and aims to favorably impact health and well-being, relieve pain and infirmity, enhance performance, and improve quality of life without drugs or surgery. The Doctor of Chiropractic is a primary care provider for the prevention, diagnosis and conservative management of spine-related disorders and associated locomotor conditions. Serving the patient’s best interest in a professional and ethical manner, the Doctor of Chiropractic employs experience and the best available evidence to make clinical decisions, deliver care and manage identified health concerns and conditions. In addition, Doctors of Chiropractic comply with the laws and regulations governing chiropractic practice in the applicable jurisdiction, including documentation, coding and billing practices.
The practice of chiropractic includes clinically necessary:
- Assessments of a patient’s health status, needs, concerns and conditions by obtaining a case-appropriate history and physical examination, and by acquiring necessary imaging, laboratory or diagnostic studies;
- Consideration of axial (spine) and appendicular (extremity) structure and function, including subluxation, and the status of contiguous muscular and neural systems by means of physical evaluation, imaging and/or special test procedures;
- Patient-centered management consistent with the obtained history, clinical information and diagnoses;
- Care coordination accomplished through goal-oriented management plans that include treatment recommendations intended to favorably influence outcomes, prognosis, risks, behaviors and lifestyle;
- Administration of manual therapeutic procedures such as chiropractic adjustment, manipulation, mobilization or soft tissue techniques – as indicated by the history and clinical examination;
- Use of complementary measures, such as passive modalities, active exercise and rehabilitation, nutritional counseling and supplementation, bracing, strapping and orthoses, and other procedures allowed under respective chiropractic practice acts; and
- Promotion of health, wellness and disease prevention by evaluating relevant indicators and risk factors, and by providing care directed at mitigating health risks and encouraging healthy lifestyles.
The Palmer Educational Principles
The following is a statement of educational principles held by Palmer College of Chiropractic, which is comprised of two campuses in:
- Davenport, Iowa
- Port Orange, Florida
Palmer College of Chiropractic recognizes the need to maintain an optimum learning environment through a sustained commitment to excellence and continual improvement. The following reconfirm Palmer’s role as an innovative, dynamic and exciting community of diverse learners and scholars.
- Palmer College embraces the philosophy that life is intelligent and that the human body possesses an inherent potential to maintain itself in a natural state of homeostasis through its innate/inborn intelligence. Moreover, the science of chiropractic emphasizes the relationship between structure and function, primarily that between the spinal column and the nervous system. Implicit within this statement is the significance of the nervous system to health and the effect of the subluxation complex upon the nervous system and, therefore, the body.
- Palmer College is a learning community. The College is dedicated to developing, sustaining and refining a vertically and horizontally integrated chirocentric curriculum where excellence in teaching and learning is realized throughout the academic and the clinical experience. As the premier institution of chiropractic education, Palmer College is dedicated to offering students an exceptional education through a curriculum that is dynamic in nature. Palmer College encourages students to be health care professionals who make a difference in the community and in the world because they have learned to observe, think, question, imagine, serve and speak out based on the ethics they embrace and the education they have acquired. Palmer College exists to serve students and to promote student growth and development.
- Palmer College encourages its students to become life-long learners. Students interact with administrators, faculty, staff and alumni, exposing them to the excitement of learning and discovery.
- Through persistent professional leadership and competency development, students learn to appreciate and understand the complexity and diversity of the world in which we live and work. As Doctors of Chiropractic, they’ll have high expectations of their own efforts and they’ll see learning as extending far beyond the classroom and clinic to their life responsibilities as health care professionals. Palmer College is dedicated to teaching students how to learn.
- Palmer College expects faculty to be effective teachers, productive scholars and focused academicians. The three are inextricably intertwined. Effective teaching over a career can only be maintained through productive scholarship. In its various forms, scholarship enhances excellence in the classroom and the clinic. Focused academicians, demonstrating mastery of a chosen field, inspire student learning. At Palmer, the faculty are competent academicians who pursue teaching as one type of scholarship. Having creative scholars who teach and teachers who are creative scholars fosters a learning atmosphere that’s unique in chiropractic education.
- Palmer College is committed to developing the finest chiropractic clinicians. Students are encouraged to focus on wellness promotion, health assessment, diagnosis and the chiropractic management of the patient’s health care needs. Palmer succeeds because its graduates are inspired by a broader vision using the knowledge and abilities they’ve acquired to form values and to serve the common good. Students train their minds, sensibilities and abilities for a lifetime of critical, independent thought and commitment to personal, professional and community service.
- Palmer College is committed to the advancement of the chiropractic profession. The College community of administrators, faculty, staff, alumni and students are encouraged to communicate and collaborate with others in the profession. The exchange of ideas and synergistic effect of collaborations leads to greater accomplishments for the profession than would be possible through individual efforts. The College is dedicated to advancing awareness and appreciation of chiropractic and chiropractic education around the world by the most efficient and effective means.
- Palmer College is dedicated to the welfare and success of its students. Through the Palmer learning experience, students are prepared to develop and refine:
-
- Lifelong learning skills and habits
- Critical thinking skills
- Written, verbal and listening communication skills
- Leadership qualities and management skills
- A sense of service to patients, the profession and the community
- A consistent application of ethics in their practice of chiropractic
- An ability to make substantive contributions to the interdisciplinary health care environment
- An ability to make a contribution to the development of a rational system of “wellness” health care
- An ability to apply evidence-based reasoning in determining the needs of their patients
- An ability to be successful in current and emerging business management and reimbursement systems
The Five Strategic Directions of the College
Direction 1: Student Learning
Provide high-quality, chiropractic-focused academic and clinical research programs for diverse health care settings.
Direction 2: Health Care Delivery
Model and provide chiropractic health care that is evidence-based and integrates patient values and clinician experience.
Direction 3: Service
Promote campus engagement, community service and professional participation.
Direction 4: Resources and Support
Ensure and manage resources and processes in support of College programs and initiatives.
Direction 5: Advancing Knowledge Through Research
Improve human health by advancing knowledge through research.
Institutional Policies
The College’s Board of Trustees delegates to the Administration the authority to develop, institute and enforce institutional policies and processes to govern the College’s operations. These Institutional Policies apply to the Davenport, Iowa and Port Orange, Fla. campuses. Institutional Policies may be accessed online: https://www.palmer.edu/about-us/office-of-compliance/institutional-policies.
Accreditation/Licensure
The Doctor of Chiropractic Degree Program at Palmer College of Chiropractic’s Davenport, Iowa and Port Orange, Florida; campuses is awarded programmatic accreditation by The Council on Chiropractic Education, 10105 E Via Linda, Suite 103 PMB 3642, Scottsdale, AZ 85258. Telephone: 480-443-8877, website: http://www.cce-usa.org.
The College’s campuses are accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. The Commission can be reached by mail at 230 South LaSalle Street, Suite 7-500 Chicago, IL 60604-1411 or by phone at 1-800-621-7440.
Both the Higher Learning Commission and the Council on Chiropractic Education are recognized by the United States Department of Education.
The College’s, Davenport, Iowa, campus is exempt from State of Iowa registration requirements for postsecondary institutions under Iowa Code Section 261B.11, subsection 10; however, the College has voluntarily registered the Davenport, Iowa, campus with the Iowa Department of Education – Bureau of Iowa College Aid as part of the Commission-approved interstate reciprocity agreement (SARA) application process. Any questions a student may have regarding this catalog may be directed to: Department of Accreditation & Licensure 1000 Brady Street, Davenport, IA 52803, 563-884-5586.
The College’s Port Orange, Florida, campus is licensed by the Commission for Independent Education, Florida Department of Education. Additional information regarding the College’s Port Orange, Florida, campus may be obtained by contacting the Commission at 325 West Gaines Street, Suite 1414, Tallahassee, FL 32399- 0400, or by phone at 888-224-6684.
Contact information for each campus is located on the Catalog main page.
Approvals
The College is approved for training of veterans under Title 38 of the United States Code, by the Iowa State Department of Public Instruction of Veterans’ Affairs, and by the Florida Department of Veterans’ Affairs for the Veterans Administration of the United States. The College is approved by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service for attendance by non-immigrant students.
Palmer College of Chiropractic is approved by the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements
(NC-SARA) which allows the College to do business in the current SARA-member states and the District of Columbia. SARA enables the College to offer distance education in the member states.
In addition, participation in this organization and individual state authorizations allow Palmer students to take part in supervised field experiences in 49 US states and the District of Columbia.
College Financial Information
Certain financial information pertaining to the College budget and other finances is available to the public. Certain types of information may be obtained through the office of the Vice Chancellor of Finance, Palmer College of Chiropractic, 1000 Brady Street, Davenport, IA 52803.
