In a historic decision, two of the most important educational and scientific meetings in chiropractic are coming together for the first time. Traditionally, the Association of Chiropractic Colleges (ACC) meeting has emphasized educational structure, administration, and teaching, while the Research Agenda Conference (RAC) has focused on the development of scientific knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Combining the two programs will be more than the sum of their parts, significantly enhancing the natural relationship between chiropractic scholarship and education.
The program will have broad appeal to the entire profession, not just the educational and scientific communities in chiropractic. Practitioners, policy-makers, and anyone who wants to keep abreast of the latest developments in chiropractic science will find exciting cutting-edge presentations on subluxation and adjustment physiology, biomechanics, chiropractic technique, effectiveness of chiropractic care, and other topics.
The 2002 conference will be jointly sponsored and financially supported by the Bureau of Health Professions of the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, the Association of Chiropractic Colleges, and the NIH, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine through the Consortial Center for Chiropractic Research. Additional sponsors will be the National Chiropractic Mutual Insurance Company, Foot-Levelers, Inc., and Educational Investment Corporation. Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College and the Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research will provide experienced administrative functions. This may be the widest coalition of support ever assembled for a chiropractic educational meeting.
An exciting emphasis of the combined meeting will be on presentations of original research in the areas of educational practice, basic science, clinical science, and health services. The Steering Committee anticipates a large number of high-quality contributed abstracts from chiropractic researchers around the world. Platform presentations will be augmented with highly interactive poster sessions, where audience members can talk directly with the individuals about their research. In addition, many popular experts from previous RAC and ACC meetings will be involved in the plenary presentations, breakouts, and small workshop sessions, dealing with such topics as:
• State-of-the-art in chiropractic research in bioengineering, neuroscience, clinical science, chiropractic technique, and educational evaluation
• Increasing the impact of chiropractic science
• Biostatistics and experimental design
• How to write a grant proposal
• Faculty and personnel development
• Case reports: the base of evidence for chiropractic
• Writing for professional journals
• Critical appraisal of scholarly literature
• Research administration
• How to evaluate a faculty career
• Developing scholarly presentation skills
• Diversity in chiropractic education and research
• Encouraging scholarly activity
• Ethics and professionalism in chiropractic