Dr. Carl S. Cleveland III, a member of a pioneering chiropractic family, is a fourth generation Doctor of Chiropractic and the President of Cleveland Chiropractic College, with campuses in Kansas City and Los Angeles.
Dr. Cleveland has served as president of the Council on Chiropractic Education and the Association of Chiropractic Colleges, and as National Spokesperson for the ACA-ICA Alliance for Chiropractic Progress. In 2003, he co-authored Fundamentals of Chiropractic, and is a co-editor of Review Questions for the NBCE Examination, Parts I and II, both of Mosby Publishers.
He is also the host and co-editor of the American Chiropractic Association’s inspiring Simple Justice video series, which details the chiropractic profession’s struggles, past and present, to gain recognition in the health care field.
Q: What are Cleveland’s areas of greatest strength for the chiropractic student and the profession?
A: The greatest strength is the well-qualified and experienced Cleveland faculty. These passionate educators are truly committed to the success of each student.
Combine this with the optional choice of a 9- or 12-trimester curricular program, early hands-on exposure to a wide variety of adjustive techniques, the diversity of patients in Cleveland Health Centers, and the Cleveland Business and Practice Success Training program—these all contribute to the development of a graduate prepared for today’s realities and demands impacting practice success.
Student interns are quick to compliment the interdisciplinary clinical experience in providing patient care as part of Cleveland’s affiliation with the University of Southern California Student Health Services program in Los Angeles, and at the Truman Medical Center in Kansas City.
Q: What are your plans for the future of the college with regard to chiropractic?
A: The Cleveland Clinic Abroad Program will be implemented providing interns opportunities to participate in supervised patient care settings at international locations as a complement to the college Health Center clinical experience. Cleveland’s nationwide preceptor program will be expanded to include international practice opportunities.
The college research infrastructure is expanding and has fostered a strong multicampus research team undertaking a variety of projects seeking to understand the profession’s role in contributing to patient health and wellness.
The college is implementing curricular revisions expanding the emphasis on health promotion, lifestyle factors wellness education, and enhanced delivery of the chiropractic technique program. Progress is underway to expand health promotion and wellness education to other graduate programs.
Q: Where do you see the chiropractic profession headed?
A: Predictions for the profession’s future?
• Various internal and external dynamics will focus chiropractic’s leadership on developing a core identity to effectively communicate the doctor of chiropractic’s role and value as part of today’s health care system.
• The “Evidence-Based Care” movement will increasingly affect health care providers in all disciplines. The chiropractic leadership is responding through the development of a series of “Best Practices” initiatives to assist the practitioner in communicating treatment rationales to the patient, to case managers and to third-party payers.
• A clear identity coupled with the “Best Practices” initiative will result in greater collaboration with non-DC health care practitioners, resulting in increased patient referral to DC practices.
• Chiropractic student interns will have opportunities for residency training programs working under supervision of DCs affiliated with VA Hospitals.
The research opportunities within such residencies may have far reaching and positive effects for advancing the science of chiropractic. Such affiliations would become training grounds for the next generation of chiropractic researchers.