News
In 2022, the Mechnikov North-West State Medical University will begin training students in accordance with a new educational program – full-time training in osteopathy. The program implies mastering of osteopathic profession during 5 years. People who do not have a higher medical education will have a chance to become osteopathic physicians. These are school graduates, specialists with a secondary medical education and others.
The new training format has a number of advantages, since the targeted formation of a holistic approach and professional osteopathic competencies of a future specialist will start from the first year of studies along with the formation of general medical competencies. By the end of training, students will master osteopathic diagnostic and therapeutic methods and techniques and have the necessary medical knowledge, which will allow them to provide qualified medical care. This method of osteopathic training (full-time) was proposed by the World Health Organization in the «Benchmarks for training in osteopathy» as the main one.
The opening of the program is an important historical event, both for the Russian osteopathic community and for the entire healthcare system of the country. The last full-time university training in clinical medicine (dentistry) was opened in the fifties of the last century. As for osteopathic training, it was previously carried out in Russia only in accordance with the professional retraining program (3,504 hours) and residency program (4,320 hours) and was available only to specialists with higher medical education. Now osteopathy has officially become a basic clinical medical specialty, along with general medicine, pediatrics and dentistry, and everyone has a chance to get a higher medical osteopathic education and the qualification of an osteopathic physician.