Faculty members like Assistant Professor
Lia Nightingale, Ph.D., are teaching EBCP |
In the midst of Homecoming on Palmer’s
Davenport Campus, Cynthia Long, Ph.D.,
director of research, received exciting
news from the National Institutes of
Health.The official notification for the
R25 grant award for “Expanding Evidence-
based Clinical Practice (EBCP)
and Research Across Palmer College of
Chiropractic” had been renewed for four
more years with an award of $876,821.
Outcomes of the first four years of this
grant have proven successful. “We have
faculty on all three campuses who have
been trained through various workshops
and other activities to bring EBCP into the
classroom and clinic,” says Dr. Long, who
is the principal investigator for the grant.
Palmer will continue to send select faculty
from all campuses to attend EBCP training
at McMaster University in Hamilton,
Ontario, as well as train even more faculty
members at an EBCP workshop held
on the University of Iowa campus. While
the first four years of the grant helped
faculty put EBCP principles and practice
into the Doctor of Chiropractic curriculum
on the Davenport Campus, the second
four years will go further by supporting
integration of EBCP within the curriculum
and on all of Palmer’s campuses.
Ultimately this will better prepare graduates
to practice in a modern health care
environment. Christine Goertz, D.C.,
Ph.D., vice chancellor for research and
health policy, adds, “We hope to see
adoption of EBCP attitudes, knowledge
and skills by Palmer graduates who are
effectively practicing evidence-based clinical
decision-making in an environment
that increasingly demands interdisciplinary
cooperation and an emphasis on
patient outcomes.”
“The College focused on a train-the-trainer
strategy with our faculty and this has
worked well for us,” explains Dr. Long.
Faculty who have taken an initiative in
expanding EBCP across Palmer will
continue to grow this idea and expand it
over the next four years. Robert Percuoco,
D.C., vice chancellor for Academic Affairs,
adds, “The faculty has gone beyond simply
satisfying the requirements of a grant,
to preparing students to negotiate the next
wave of the health care revolution.”