Jennifer Lawlor Supervisor: Robin Kirk
Abstract
In the UK osteopathy became Statutory Regulated in 2000 and saw the creation of a regulating body, the General Osteopathic Council, and the introduction of enforceable standards of practise. In America osteopathy has operated under the umbrella of the biomedical orthodoxy from its beginnings (Baer, 1984) and this may have helped determine the direction osteopathy has taken there. Surgery, drug regimes and specialisation are typical of modern American osteopathy (Miller, 1998) and manipulation has become increasingly sidelined (Johnson & Kurtz, 2001). State endorsement entails some conformation to the philosophy of the dominant orthodoxy (Cobb, 1976 in Baer, 1981). This means that British osteopathy is pressured to define itself in terms that can be understood by the dominant biomedical profession. Reductionism and Evidence Based Medicine are characteristic of biomedicine (Korr, 1991) and represent possible conflicts with holistic osteopathic philosophy.
This study uses a questionnaire-based survey to investigate whether osteopaths graduating from the London School of Osteopathy after Statutory Regulation demonstrate significantly different attitudes to those who graduated in the period when it was still an unlicensed profession.
The results showed that although overall there has been no significant shift in attitude since Statutory Regulation, post-Statutory Regulation graduates were more inclined toward the American osteopathic model. Other differences in attitude were determined by gender and whether the osteopath had considered an alternative medical profession prior to training as an osteopath.