• Kinsinger FS
• Lawrence DJ

• Council on Chiropractic Education (United States)
• Curriculum / standards
• Education, Chiropractic / standards
• Ethics / education
• Open Access Document

Objective: The Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE) mandates that all accredited colleges teach ethics as a core part of the curriculum. Included in this mandate are professional behaviors, doctor-patient power differential, boundaries, risk management, social responsibility, committing to life-long learning, veracity and sound business practices. This paper presents an argument for enhanced content in ethics education in chiropractic colleges.

Discussion: We advocate a framework of the virtue ethics system using content most relevant to the needs of chiropractic learners including codes of conduct, moral agency, social change agency, professionalism and professionalization, ethics and virtues of care, ethics of touch, boundary setting and maintenance, resolving an ethical dilemma, conflict of interest and doctor-patient communication. Additional content options include the ethics of research, life and death issues for chiropractors and the ethics of practitioner self-care.

Conclusion: Since there is neither standardization nor congruency across chiropractic colleges in ethics curricula, our proposed curriculum offers an attempt to standardization with strong advocacy for its timeliness and utility with great adaptability for both online and on campus instruction.

Author keywords: Clinical Ethics; Professional Ethics; Chiropractic; Professional Education

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