Professor Rod Bonello

Continuing education

This year’s annual conference focused on helping practitioners grow an evidence-based practice which is successful both in terms of providing patient-centred care and improved clinical outcomes, as well as ensuring that their clinics are profitable. Local and international speakers taught the framework for creating a successful evidence-based practice.

In addition to the conference we have been working for the last eighteen months on creating our new online education platform which has been developed in partnership with the European Chiropractors’ Union and the Royal College of Chiropractors in the UK. Under the guidance of Dr Peter Werth this platform, called the Global Education Network for Chiropractic (GEN-C), will bring together experts from around the globe, providing access to high quality online educational content to meet educational needs. This initiative is to be paired with an upgrade of the Chiropractic Australia Journal Club which has been the brainchild of Dr Adrian Sheridan. Dr Sheridan has worked tirelessly to pull together a vast resource of literature relating to the practice of chiropractic. He has condensed this into a monthly digest that provides an excellent source of the latest evidence to assist practicing clinicians. Later in the year we will be launching an updated resource in the form of a new Chiropractic Australia Journal Club website that will be accessible as a free member benefit to Chiropractic Australia members. I wish to publicly acknowledge Dr Sheridan and his team - Drs Andrew Shepherd, Matt Bulman and Amber Beynon.

These new initiatives will be launched to coincide with the new CPD cycle in December and will offer you a highly valuable portal to access all your CPD needs. In addition to this we will continue to provide our internationally applauded podcast the icarechirocast hosted by Professors Dave Newell (UK) and Stephen Perle (USA). This too is an excellent resource for clinicians to keep abreast of the latest developments in the profession through interviews with some of the leaders in musculoskeletal health care from around the world.

International symposium participation

In mid September this year CA will participate in the Global Summit on the Effectiveness of Spinal Manipulation for the prevention and management of nonMusculoskeletal Disorders. This landmark event seeks to provide genuine guidance on the value of chiropractic intervention in this contentious area. Organised by Professors Jan Hartvigsen, Charlotte LeBoeuf-Yde and Pierre Cote, this meeting brings together formidable resources and the profession’s best minds to tackle this task.

Paediatric scope of practice

Chiropractic Australia has made strong input to the review panel at Safer Care Victoria (SVC) with a submission which is publicly available. In that submission we defend parents’ choice in having their children seen by a chiropractor, emphasising (among other things) high levels of patient/parent satisfaction, an exceptionally low level of potential harm, as well as the emerging data on clinical efficacy. Safer Care Victoria will hand down its recommendations in September which will be transmitted to the health ministers at their COAG meeting in October. Public support for paediatric chiropractic care has been overwhelming with SCV having received many thousands of survey responses which have been decisive in demanding continued access to chiropractic for children.

Research matters

Our sister organisation, the Chiropractic Australia Research Foundation (CARF) continues to grow in its support of early career researchers and its funding of projects of importance to the profession. One of our goals in supporting research is to provide quality evidence to refine chiropractic practice and validate the fine work that our members provide each day in practice.

The future

Over the last four years we have made great progress and continued to achieve our goals in advocating for chiropractors as musculoskeletal experts. As a reform organisation we stand for raising the profile of the profession as a vital component of the health care team. We will continue to focus on ethical, patient-centred and evidence-based care. However, we depend on our membership to ensure our ongoing impact so your continued support through membership is crucial. Encouraging your colleagues, associates and professional partners to also join will take us to the next level.

Rod Bonello BSc(Syd), DO, DC(SCC), MHA(UNSW), FRCC President