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Clinical Education
The Pitt Doctor of Chiropractic program follows a learning model that prioritizes clinical experience during the entirety of the program to best prepare students to become confident and successful chiropractors.
Practicing in clinicals alongside the classroom curriculum aims to reinforce those learnings with direct, real-world, hands-on practice.
“In Pitt’s program, students will experience their first clinical rotation in the first week of semester one. While immersed in foundational sciences, then systems-based diagnosis and eventually advanced patient-management, they will participate in learning experiences across a variety of chiropractic and interprofessional practice environments.”
There are three (3) distinct phases of Pitt’s Doctor of Chiropractic clinical experience. This progression doubles the amount of clinical experience required by the discipline’s accrediting body and accreditation standards.
Phase 1: Foundational Clinical Exposure (Semesters 1–2)
Phase 1 introduces students to health care delivery through observation (Clinical Practicum 1-2). Students rotate in community chiropractic offices as well as primary care, specialty, emergency and hospital-based interprofessional settings, including UPMC and the Pittsburgh VA system. While mastering structural and functional sciences and developing evidence-based clinical reasoning principles and manual therapy skills, students will shadow clinicians and learn from a wide array of health care professionals.
In this phase, students will be assigned structured active-learning assignments to link bedside observations to basic science concepts, biopsychosocial clinical-reasoning frameworks and principles of team-based care.
Phase 2: Integrated Skill Development (Semesters 3–6)
Phase 2 shifts the emphasis to supervised hands-on practice, focused on managing musculoskeletal conditions of the spine and extremities (Clinical Practicum 3 – Pre-Clerkship). Students conduct focused histories and examinations, generate differential diagnoses and apply entry-level manual and rehabilitative techniques under direct preceptor oversight.
Parallel coursework in the classroom includes diagnostic imaging, evidence-based practice and care of special populations—such as pediatrics, geriatrics and athletes. This provides the content threads that will “cross-stitch” with weekly clinic cases. During this phase, students foster iterative clinical reasoning and steadily increase autonomy in care-plan development.
Phase 3: Immersive Clinical Practice (Semesters 7–8)
Phase 3 builds from part-time to full-time supervised clerkships during which students function as pre-licensed clinicians (Clerkship 1-2). Managing real-world patients, Pitt Doctor of Chiropractic students refine advanced diagnostic and therapeutic skills, navigate ethical and legal nuances and demonstrate national board-level readiness.
Graduates leave with proof of competence across the entire spectrum of patient management—from symptom relief through functional optimization—while cultivating habits of reflective practice and continuous quality improvement.
Read more about the chiropractic clinical experience!
Clinical Instructors and Preceptors
Practicing chiropractors can complete this survey to be considered as a clinical partner for the chiropractic students.
