Michael Wiles DC - College of Chiropractic Medicine Keiser University - Testimony before the Florida House Health Quality Subcommittee
Dean of the College of Chiropractic Medicine
Keiser University
Testimony before the Florida House Health Quality Subcommittee
March 19, 2019
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I am the Dean of the College of Chiropractic Medicine at Keiser University, the newest chiropractic program in the country. We started in 2016 accepting our first students and we received our initial accreditation with CCE in January of this year.
Not just received accreditation but we received it with two commendations for our program as well so we are very proud of our program.
I am very much opposed to HB 873 and I believe this will actually threaten the safety of the citizens of the State of Florida.
The issue here is that other accrediting agencies that have been put forth as equivalent or able to accredit chiropractic education, the concern I have is that the CCE which has been here since 1974, accredited, or rather uh, approved by the Federal Government since 1974. And by the way I'm quite a Junior to Dr. Peter Martin. I was a student back then, I've been a chiropractor 43 years. Um, but a, the CCE is a, has wide representation from the public, chiropractic educators, chiropractic practitioners, and uh other higher education educators and has developed and evolved since 1974 uh, very, uh, uh, very, uh, important for us list of standards to be met in chiropractic education.
Regional accreditors and other accreditors such as SACS for example have no such specific chiropractic standards and uh, of course being accredited by SACS or a regional accreditor is important but that just represents the quality of education and fiscal management and so on. It says nothing about specific requirements for chiropractic education. CCE for example, specifies coursework that must be taken, the competencies of a graduate chiropractor and these have been very important for us and we used them as benchmarks and as a guideline really to create our particular program. We had no problem receiving initial accreditation as I said with commendations as well.
So, frankly, when, when, we heard of this among the chiropractic education community it was shaking our heads like why on earth would we want to do this? Why would you want to eliminate the specific evolved guidelines for chiropractic education that have been working very well since 1974.
And I remember the time before then as well, I was a student at the time and it was like the chiropractic wild west out there. Anything went. We were so thrilled and so happy that as Dr. Martin said a seminal moment in chiropractic history that finally we had an accreditor that could be trusted and would guide us with the highest standards.
So, I'm just gonna read just two small paragraphs. I can see absolutely no benefit to eliminating the requirement that doctor of chiropractic programs be accredited by CCE in Florida given CCE's long and respected track record and experience developing and maintaining high levels of excellence for chiropractic education.
All states recognize CCE as their accrediting body for chiropractic education and practice.
The elimination of the requirement of doctor of chiropractic programs to be accredited by CCE will endanger public safety by creating the potential for educational programs that only meet regional accreditation standards related to non-professional aspects of education but do not meet professional standards for chiropractic education that are nationally accepted by all current chiropractic educational programs.
As I said, I remember the days beforehand and the chiropractic profession took a giant leap forward with the CCE's Federal recognition and I think Florida would be taking a giant step backward by eliminating it.
CLICK HERE for a video of Wiles testimony.
