159 - A Practical Course Teaching Basic Osteopathic Manipulation Principles and Techniques: A Prospective Study Comparing Allopathic and Osteopathic Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Residents

Objectives: Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PM&R) is a medical specialty encompassed by a focus on restoring and maximizing functional ability for individuals with physical impairments. Over many years, manual manipulation has served as a “tool” of functional restoration whether via Osteopathic or Chiropractic techniques. Published studies demonstrate lack of awareness by PM&R graduates of manual medicine despite the positive outcomes demonstrated. This study sought to demonstrate that techniques taught in a basic Osteopathic Principles and Techniques course could be retained by allopathic PM&R residents and used to aid their patients in recovery from musculoskeletal ailments. In addition, the study sought to demonstrate that learning these techniques, while basic, would allow for better translation of knowledge given the more intensive musculoskeletal training that PM&R residents undergo during residency.

Design: All 24 residents (17 allopathic and 7 osteopathic) at a large University based medical center participated in the course. Six 30-minute, pre-recorded lectures and six 60-minute, practical sessions were taught. The resident’s acceptability of the course and improvement in skills was evaluated via an Oral and Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE).

Results: Over 80% of the residents expressed an interest in learning osteopathic principles and practice and a similar rate found the course helpful. The OSCE results demonstrated allopathic residents were not only able to retain basic principles, but also apply these techniques on patients competently (~7.9 pre; ~12.4 post). The osteopathic residents predictably tested more proficiently in both principles and techniques (~22.5 pre; ~23.1 post).

Conclusions: We conclude that basic Osteopathic Manipulation, as a course, was successfully implemented into our PM&R residency program and could easily be translated to other PM&R residency programs. The education served not only as a refresher course for Osteopathic residents, but allowed allopathic residents to gain competency, thus enabling all PM&R residents to become more proficient in musculoskeletal medicine.