Five More Sherman Students Awarded Research Fellowships from Foundation for Vertebral Subluxation

Five students from Sherman College of Chiropractic in Spartanburg, South Carolina were recently awarded Research Fellowships through the Foundation for Vertebral Subluxation (FVS). The students will join the Foundation's research team and will be immediately focused on assisting with one of the Foundation's ongoing projects: Best Practices and Guideline Development for Management of Vertebral Subluxation.

Those students include:

• Suzzanne M. Candelaria-Perez BSc.
• Justin Bedrosian BS
• Christopher T. Long BS
• Gabriel Hrebien BA
• Brooke Mills

With over 100 projects either completed or in the works, the Foundation for Vertebral Subluxation (FVS) has been hard at work addressing research on the vertebral subluxation along with policy and education issues affecting the profession. In addition to actually conducting research the FVS also supports a team of researchers through its scholarship program with eighteen Fellowships having been granted with the addition of these five students. The FVS, through its Advancing Futures program, seeks to provide scholarships to individuals who assist in carrying out the Research Agenda of the organization.

CLICK HERE for more information on the FVS Research Agenda

According to the Foundation, its Advancing Futures program is our best hope at accomplishing a collaborative, organized movement to research subluxation. The FVS' research agenda seeks to validate the profession and position chiropractic as a vitalistic, scientific, evidence informed clinical practice. The more research, the greater the chance the profession will have of gaining a higher degree of respect, understanding and acceptance in the health care marketplace, the scientific community and among the patients it serves. It is imperative to make these new research advancements available to the public, other health professions, and to legislators in order to promote and to systematically advance the field of subluxation centered chiropractic through the initiation of favorable public health policy.

Several years ago the Foundation for Vertebral Subluxation (FVS) embarked on an ambitious effort to develop a clinical practice guideline/best practices project that would search, gather, compile and review the scientific literature going as far back as January 2007. The FVS saw a crucial need to develop this project because other practice guidelines that included the management of vertebral subluxation were about to become outdated leaving chiropractors who practice in a subluxation model vulnerable in malpractice claims, regulatory board witch hunts and the insurance industry.

That project became a permanent Best Practices Initiative which now searches, gathers and reviews the literature every month on a regular basis and updates the Foundation's Best Practices database which is then used to develop recommendations and best practices policy for the management of vertebral subluxation.

FVS Board Member Veronica Gutierrez DC, who worked on practice guideline development along with FVS President Christopher Kent DC, JD and FVS Vice President Matthew McCoy DC, MPH in the 90’s, praised the work of the team. “They have done an outstanding job and anyone that has ever suffered through guideline development knows all too well the pain and personal sacrifice it brings with it. But they also know the satisfaction that comes with being involved in such important work.”

The Foundation is currently in the process of developing recommendations on instrumentation, radiographic and other imaging, chiropractic care for children and maternal chiropractic care. Its Chapter on the Chiropractic Care of Children was recently put out for peer review and thus far has had over 250 peer review comments. Its Chapter on Maternal Care is about to be released for peer review.

Other topic areas with Chapters currently being drafted include:

• History and chiropractic examination
• Clinical impression, assessment and recordkeeping
• Reassessment and outcomes assessment
• Modes of adjustive care
• Duration of care for correction of vertebral subluxation
• Vertebral subluxation and well being
• Behavioral and mental health issues
• Patient safety, privacy and advocacy

Anquonette Stiles DC, MPH is a Research Fellow with the Foundation and serves as the Project Manager for the Best Practices Initiative. Christie Kwon MS, DC, who was the Project Manager for the initial project that began in 2015 is currently completing her Masters in Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta with a scholarship from the Foundation. Kwon remains involved and provides oversight and guidance to the developing team. Kwon's research focus now is the epidemiology of verterbal subluxation.

“We are taking a train the trainers approach moving forward to establish a permanent team with ongoing expertise in best practices work” stated Kwon. “The profession desperately needs people who are committed to the development of these guidelines given the upheaval currently going on in the profession.”

The FVS intends to make all of its work available to the profession and is addressing legal and technical issues related to copyright, reproduction issues, database and website development. Once that is complete the team will produce an ongoing monthly update of all the scientific literature published. This means the FVS will have the most current evidence impacting subluxation management. Then every five years the FVS will update the Recommendations based on the literature. The five year process will be made much easier because the literature is being searched, gathered and reviewed on a regular basis instead of just every five years.

ABOUT Foundation for Vertebral Subluxation

The mission of the Foundation is to advocate for and advance the founding principles and tenets of the chiropractic profession in the area of vertebral subluxation through research, education, policy and service.