 This is Exploring Chiropractic, episode 5 with Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and I'm Nathan Cash, and this show is not sponsored by any chiropractic institution, including UWS and RMIT, so anything shared in our discussion is the opinion of the guests and the hosts based on our personal experiences, nothing that we share should be construed as the official opinion, policy, or branding of any of the institutions that we mention. And the feature affiliate for this episode is Audible. You can get a free audiobook download today, yours to keep by visiting ExploringChiropractic.com slash Audible. I created this podcast to foster engagement between the chiropractic schools around the world and to help pre-chiropractic students to determine which school is best for them. This is episode 5 for February 1st, 2014, and we're talking with students from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and I'd like to invite them on right now. First up is Mark, and he's a Canadian Australian living in Australia since 2003, an orthodist for 20 years, and just three years ago decided that it was time to fulfill his lifelong journey to become a chiropractor, and is currently a third-year student and works full time running his own practice and traveling to school. Welcome, Mark! How are you doing? All right, right up the bat we're getting some low band with Mark, so I'm going to move on over to Ash. So Ash Burian is a third-year chiropractic student born and raised in Melbourne and completed a commerce degree and worked in finance for three years, and along with Mark is about to commence the third year of the five-year chiropractic program. Welcome, Ash! Thank you very much. Thank you for having me, Nathan. So how's it going down there in Melbourne? Yeah, good. Thank you at the moment. The structure of our course is two semesters over each year, and we're currently on summer holidays. We have a pretty long break in between semesters, so we're currently on a three and a half month summer long break. So yeah, just enduring a bit of the heat, it's going to be a 41 degrees Celsius over here today. I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit, but I think it's over 100. Yeah, that's very hot. Yeah, it's going to be a hot day, but yeah, just enjoying the holidays and looking forward to be honest to getting back into study this year. Awesome, we're in the middle of trimester, so I'm kind of in the middle of midterm exams. I've got four coming up this week. Oh, gosh. NVU being on break. Yeah, I definitely imagined that. It looks like we got Mark back. Mark, are you able to hear us and chat with us? Yeah, just to repeat. Sounds like it's still a bit rough. Mark, why don't you try to jump out and come on back in? Okay. So Ash, you mentioned that RMIT is, so it's on semesters, but the program is very different than what it's like here in the States. Right? We've got usually a three-year program after a certain number of prerequisites. How does it work down there? Yeah, so down here, I mean, the vast majority, I'd say 60 to 70% of students who start the first year of the program, they're straight out of high school. So in speaking to a couple of students in North America previously, I believe that you'll have, you know, a four years of chiropractic school or college. But before that, you've also done some sort of undergraduate program at a university. It's a little bit different here. So it's not uncommon at all. In fact, it's commonplace for somebody to come straight out of high school at around 18 years of age and go straight into a five-year program. So, but I mean, there's not coming out of high school at 18, you can't obviously claim any prerequisites. So you have to complete the full five-year course of chiropractic. So and as with regard to probably the other 30% of students that are enrolled, they're, you know, what's deemed mature age students. So they're not out of high school straight away. And some of them, like myself, like Mark, have engaged in previous studies, some of it related to, you know, health sciences and some of it not. But the structure of our program is a three-year bachelor and then a two-year master's program. So you need to require both in order to become registered as a chiropractor in Australia. So in the States and Canada, it's a doctorate program. So you're not earning a doctorate degree? No, no. We, I mean, we still get the doctor's title once we become registered. But, you know, it's a three-year bachelor and then a two-year master's program at current. And is that bachelor's program something that a student could earn on their own just as a separate degree or is that specifically for chiropractic? It's specifically for chiropractic. So you'd have to do it through Rob Melvin Institute of Technology or RMIT as we call it. And, yeah, it's majors in chiropractic. So that is a prerequisite to doing the master's program. You can't go straight into the masters without doing or getting accreditation for the three-year bachelor's. It's a three-year bachelor's of health science majoring in chiropractic. So that's the program that Mark and I will hopefully complete this year and head into masters next year. Awesome. All right, Mark, it sounds like you're back. Your video's looking good. Maybe not. Yeah, it's getting a bit slow. Bummer. So I got in touch with you guys because Mark emailed me after one of the previous episodes. And it's been a while since I've done an episode because last quarter was just ridiculously challenging. And I'm involved with lots of things outside of school. So I'm really glad that you got in touch and that we're chatting today. What's going on down in Australia? I know it's hot there, but what's Melbourne like in general? Melbourne is quite a diverse city. It's a bi-population in Australia. It's the second biggest city behind Sydney, who I guess a lot of people when you hear about Australia from overseas, Sydney having the Olympics a decade ago and having its iconic region harbour. It's pretty well known to overseas people. But yeah, Melbourne's a very diverse place. It's Australia having only been founded in the 18th century. It's a migrant country and that's reflected in the diversity of the people. So yeah, it's a very interesting place to live. A few times it's been voted the most livable place in the world. And I'm not surprised. It's got great food. The people are wonderful. I guess with our government and whatnot, we're a very lucky country in terms of being able to provide for people and whatnot. So it's a wonderful place to live. Australia's long been on the top of my list of places to travel. Especially after listening to Bill Bryson's book in a sunburned country. Have you guys heard of that one? Yeah, I have. I don't know how well he captures it, but it's sure got my attention and I'm looking forward to someday coming down there. Yeah, well it's obviously without looking at a map or whatnot. It's very vast and of the major cities in Australia, each has its own unique facet. So it's a very interesting place made up of a lot of very interesting people, but every time I go overseas and come home, it makes me realize how lucky I am to be honest. So yeah, very happy here. And the institute, your school itself seems like it's quite varied because it's an institute of technology. It's not just a chiropractic school, is that right? Yeah, that's correct. So we're made up of the RMIT University has thousands and thousands of students. The chiropractic program is one of the programs that they run. And it's actually the only program in the state that we live in that is offered through a university or a college. So it's the only way if you want to become a chiropractor in the state that we live of Victoria. In Melbourne, you have to study at RMIT. Otherwise, you have to go to another institution in Australia to be able to become a chiropractor. So, but we're one of many thousand students across several different campuses. But our campus is based approximately 30 to 40 kilometres out of the city in a suburb called Fundura. So yeah, it's a little bit out of the city, but it's somewhere that we all enjoy being together. The campus that we're on is predominantly health science and a little bit of engineering. But yeah, most of the health sciences are based out on the campus that we're at. Do I assume that RMIT has campuses elsewhere in the world as well? Isn't there one in Asia somewhere? Yeah, I believe there's one. I don't want to be quoted. It's either Malaysia or China, I believe. And yes, there is a campus there. I can't tell you exactly where it is, but there are some students that come across from there. And I know that there are some students that have studied some chiropractic units in Asia and they've come over to RMIT where we're based in Melbourne to complete subjects and courses that aren't offered in the Asian schools. That's cool. So you're getting quite a lot of variety there. If you go to exploringchiropractic.com slash schools, I do have a map of all the chiropractic schools in the world. And that's where I noticed RMIT and I think you're right in Malaysia. So quite a spread out campus. That's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, it definitely has its positives. So, Mark, you turned your video off. So I'm hoping your audio is getting better. Can we turn to you and why did you go to RMIT? Sorry, mate, it's just not coming through. It's getting quite a bit distorted. So, Ash, we'll just keep you on with you. Why did you choose RMIT then? So for me, if I wanted to become a chiropractor and I didn't want to go to RMIT, I'd have to relocate. So I don't know if it's something that's popular with students in the States in terms of relocating for a particular program. There's definitely schools over here that are more prestigious or sorry, universities over here that are more prestigious than others. But in terms of the ones that are offering chiropractic, they're all on a similar level across the various institutions that offer chiropractic in Australia. So currently there is a school in Western Australia that offers chiropractic. There's one in Sydney, one in Queensland and one in Melbourne. So at the moment, there's four locations where you can study chiropractic in Australia. So and RMIT, look, it does have a good name and it is a good school. So I guess I'm fortunate that I live, you know, within a drivable distance of the school to be able to attend it. So to be honest, in terms of researching other universities, I visited RMIT before and enrolled and I was happy and I was impressed with some of the facilities offered there. So made my choice pretty easy. In the States, it's really populated to go to the school that's closest to you. And it sounds like that's kind of what you did, but not just based on the location. It sounds like there's more regulation around being licensed as a chiropractor based on what school you go to. Not so much licensing. In terms of being covered as a chiropractor, I don't know if it varies from state to state in the US, but chiropractic regulation is better all in Australia. So it applies, all licensing applies Australia-wide. So once your course is approved as a chiropractic, once your institution is deemed appropriate to provide chiropractic education and it meets the levels required by the board and once you become licensed, there's not much differentiation between the licensing from state to state and institution to institution. It's just the level of education that's brought across to each student depending on which college they attend. All right, so that sounds pretty similar. There is a national board that you have to pass here and then there are state boards to be licensed in each state that's separate. So I think I just misunderstood when you're talking about relocation, you don't want to relocate for school. Yeah, correct, correct. Obviously the cost involved with going and moving into state, I was lucky enough to be able to still be in my area and keep cost to a minimum and getting a job easier. So yeah, that was the problem for a reason. I studied where it's because it's where I'm from. Was there anything that surprised you once you got into the curriculum once you started maybe after a year? Anything that you're a little surprised the school was teaching or doing? To be honest, not particularly. As I said, or as you mentioned in the intro, I studied finance before becoming a chiropractic student. So leaving a career that was, you know, I had a good career in what I was doing and I was very lucky to be at the firm that I was working at. And for me to make a pretty big decision like that, I'm a pretty analytical person. So I made the decision to sort of go through a full undertaking. So I knew what I was in for when I started and there was nothing that really surprised me. I guess if there was one thing though, it was the unity of all the students there. Everyone really got on board getting involved with social interaction and really enjoyed getting along with one another and supporting one another. So in my commerce degree, there certainly wasn't that unity between students. Everyone's very friendly in our course, which is another advantage. That sounds great. So Mark, you're calling in. I'm going to give you another chance to know. Oh yeah, you're coming in great now. Yeah, good. Oh, thank you for trying a couple of times. Look, I guess the only thing I wanted to probably say on what Ash said was that really it's, to me, I think much like some of the stuff I've heard you say before and some people have told me in the past, you know, you find something that you're passionate about and you keep going from that. And really what you do is you find a school that gives you the groundwork to pass the qualification and we don't, the difference to here is we don't actually have board exams, but you pass the qualification and you can then practice and that's when you're really going to learn a lot of the stuff. I think that that's what I've noticed with RMITs. There's often outside workshops that you can attend. So SOT seminars and, you know, AK and a lot of other seminars that would be a little bit different to just, you know, go picking a school because those are the techniques that they choose. Does the school itself focus on a particular technique, a technique system or philosophy? Did you want to take that, Mark? Yeah. I guess from the outside, my perspective is that they do, but they don't. So the two main techniques that we definitely learn in the undergrad portion is diversified and gone instead. And really I think there's been a lot of scrutiny in Australia around chiropractic and there's a, I won't get into the political reasons why, but there's a few things that have happened recently. And so I think the school tends to not side with maybe the more philosophical side of chiropractic just more to protect itself. Would you say that's right, Ash? Yeah, definitely. There's been some underwalled sort of conjecture about the role of chiropractic in Australia. And it's unfortunately gained a lot of unwarranted media attention. But I think it's added to the resolve of, you know, chiropractic in this country and the role it plays. You know, simply if it didn't work, you know, there wouldn't be so many people coming back to seek chiropractors. But with regards to the program, I guess you can't really say where, you know, a biomechanical side of school or a vitalistic school in, you know, in speaking with other students globally, sometimes their schools tend to have more of a skew to one side or not. But ours, from what I've, through my experience, tends to be somewhere in the middle. And, you know, as Mark was elaborating on before, there's opportunities to be involved in, you know, outside workshops and whatnot. If you want, it's there if you want it. So anything that you want to get out of the program, there's always a means to obtaining further information, which is really good. You can take it wherever you want to take it. Yeah, that political tension isn't really any different than here in the States, actually. And I don't know if you guys can talk about it, but I've been well aware of what's going on down at Macquarie University in Australia. And I've been trying to keep track. I contacted the school to see if I could learn more. Is there anything you can share about what's going on down there? Well, I wrote a letter like a lot of people did voicing my almost disgust at the way in which they've treated students and kept students and staff in the dark about how they've conducted their affairs. No, I'm hoping I'm not. Sorry. For the listeners, just to clarify, Macquarie University is kind of like RMIT. It's a larger university with a variety of programs. Chiropractic is one of them. And recently, the school made the decision that they were going to kind of transfer the Chiropractic program out of Macquarie. And they're looking for another university that will take them under their wing. So that's what's going on down there. Yeah, that's correct. So there's been no official announcement at this stage with regards to that, as far as I'm aware. But I know that they're looking and there's been tendering of offers for programs or other universities to take on the Chiropractic program. But Macquarie does have a very good name in medical and health sciences in the state of New South Wales where the university is. So some of the justifications, and I don't want to go into it because I don't want to make this political, but some of the justifications that the dean provided with regards to transferring out were a little bit short-sighted. And it just sort of displayed a lot of poor leadership with regards to how they handled it. And at the end of the day, the students and the staff that are the ones enduring the uncertainty, which is, you know, it's disappointing for Chiropractic. And the administration has promised that the degree that the students will be from Macquarie University, even if they finish their program at a different institution, and that they will complete the program. But nevertheless, that's pretty disheartening and frustrating as a student to kind of have your program being taken away from you in a way. Yeah, definitely. And it's done on the whole evidence-based grounds. And that's just another argument, I guess, for an under time. Yeah, we do. But it's unfortunately something that just gets thrown at. It's just an argument that people throw at Chiropractic that don't understand it. So it's disappointing. Mark, do you have anything else to add to that? Yeah, no, I was just going to say that's probably, I think the focus of RMIT coming into the future, I think, is to be more evidence-based. And I know that a couple of the new lectures that have come on board, that they're involved in research, and they're trying to make sure that we get research, and that backs up or at least quantifies whatever it is we're saying that Chiropractic does. So I think that's something to look forward to. It's just going to become stronger and stronger. Great. Mark, I want to hear a little more about your experience in a profession and then coming into Chiropractic school. But we're going to take a quick break here. I want to take a minute to mention the affiliate for this episode, audible.com. And I'm going to pull up Audible right now on my screen. So Audible is a library of premium digital spoken audio information and entertainment. And I've listened to now well over 100 audio books that I've downloaded on here. And it's just a great way to getting more information and learning more about whatever interests you might have. And so over the Christmas break, I spent a few days going down to Yellowstone and spent a couple of days camping in the snow. It was quite fun. And while I was there, along the drive is a 13-hour drive both ways. And I listened to a great book called Surviving Survival by Lawrence Gonzalez. And he's done a lot of research into survival and why people survive or why people die. And this one was all about the aftermath. Because after survival, there's still a lot of stuff that you got to deal with. So a fascinating book, and there's hundreds of others that you can choose from. If you'd like to get a book from Audible, visit exploreandchiropractic.com slash Audible. So Mark, you were an orthodist for 20 years and then decided to come into school. Yeah. So actually, I was always a chiropractor. And I became an orthodist for 20 years. I think it's the other way around. Because when I was looking at going to school back when I was younger, that's exactly what I was looking at. I was looking at the choice between two. And at that time, I was in Canada. And moving all the way across to Toronto to go to CMCC sounded like a pretty frightful thing. So I stuck with something that was maybe a little more safe, I guess. But really, I think my passion was always chiropractic. But I don't think that doing orthotics and prosthetics has really made a huge, it's not like I was heading in the opposite direction. There are some connections. I find that a lot of the coursework that I do at the moment, I think a lot of it, is I did get a number of exemptions because of it. But also, it makes a lot of the coursework a little more clinically obvious to me rather than maybe just learning it from book work. So I did come a long way around. But I think I've managed to sort myself out. And explain real quick what an orthodist is. I'm not sure that we use that term here. Is it orthopedist or? You guys would use it as orthotists. So there is a number of different programs running through the states anyhow. And so mainly people that make and fit orthopedic braces or different long leg spinal braces for people who have had fractures. You might see some of the big football fellows that wear knee braces. And then obviously, there's prosthetics. So building artificial limbs, that's all a combined part of the training that I did. Got it. That's fascinating. So was there any particular reason that you chose RMIT? Look, I think coming when I first moved to Australia in 2003, I don't think I was actually thinking of coming to university at all. I had a young family and I've actually taken up a position in Sydney for a year. And we were really just living in Australia. So for me, I don't think I really picked RMIT as such in that it just made logical, progressional sense for me if I'm living in Victoria. Much like Ash said, if I'm living here, I might as well check out the school that's here. And I did inquire around at both. Sounds like we're losing Mark. Ash, are you involved in any extracurricular activities at school involved with the program? Yeah, I've been involved in a couple. From the get-go, I've been involved in a student organisation called the World Congress of Chiropractic Students, or WCCS. Some of the old listeners may be familiar with it or heard of it. It's a global organisation that has chapters based in 25 chiropractic schools globally. And we get together once a year for the AGM. It varies from year to year. Last year, it was held at the Durban University of Technology, DUT. And this year, it's going to be hosted by the Barcelona College of Chiropractic down in Malaga in Spain. So it's a student organisation which encourages the progression of chiropractic through leadership. And it's been a very interesting and rewarding organisation to be involved with and given me many opportunities to engage with students from overseas and get their insights into chiropractic, which has been extremely beneficial. That's great. I just like them on Facebook. I hadn't heard of them until today. Are they like there's the Eye of CS, which is another international federation of chiropractic, I think? Are they philosophy-based? What's their main goal? They're completely impartial, 100% impartial. They don't side on one side of either from a biomechanical or vitalistic viewpoint. I guess the purpose is to unite and advance the profession, which is stated in their aims, in their vision statement. But the goal is to, again, not getting political. There's a lot of organisations and board organisations out there which may have a particular skew one way or the other. And this group provides a great level of being impartial. So students can all engage on an equal playing field and share their views and bring ideas to the organisation. So it's been very rewarding to be involved with so far. And it's incorporated a couple of years ago. So it's taking steps to become more professional. We're trying to have more representatives be at various seminars and leadership gatherings around the world. And it's taking time, but it's getting there. And it's great to be a part of. I'm glad you brought this up because I was contacted recently by a student at Barcelona. And in his email, he told me he was involved in WCCS. And I didn't know what that was at the time. So yeah, I'm checking out their page. And they've got Malaga 2014. Are you going to be going? That's only in 52 days. Yes, I've been lucky enough to say each chapter globally at each school will select representatives to go. So I've been lucky enough to be elected by my chapter to go along. And I'm heading along with five other students from RMIT. So very much looking forward to spending some time at the AGM in Malaga. And last year, there was around 120 students from across the globe. And hopefully, there'll be a similar amount this year. Yeah, this looks awesome. I'm checking out the members of the WCCS by school. It looks like about half of the schools in the United States. Well, it looks like I'm trying to see Canada. I'm not seeing if I noticed that. But then a few more down in South America. And they've got regional conferences going on, one coming up in Brazil, it looks like. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, it's been good. We are RMIT hosted a regional event last year, which is very successful. We've got a lot of prominent chiropractic people in Victoria to speak. We also hosted the president of the World Federation of Chiropractic as well. So the organization has come on in leaps and bounds recently. And it's been fantastic to be a part of. And it's a fantastic way of finding out what's happening in chiropractic abroad. And how can you join? Is there a fee to join? Or do you just follow along? So I mean, if your school has a chapter, it's obviously a lot easier to be involved with the WCCS because your chapter is involved or assigned to your university. But I know that the WCCS is trying to reach out to schools that aren't members at the moment to help try and create a chapter. I know that there have been several US schools that have not continued with their membership. Like any organization, there is work required to go into it to maintain the chapter and holding minutes and having a committee and whatnot. So unfortunately, some of those committees are fallen by the wayside. And we're hoping that through the work that we want to do and are doing that we can eventually get back to a situation where the majority of schools are represented and have a WCCS chapter. But Facebook's a good way to follow if you're a non-member and you're interested to see what we're doing. Also, through the website, it's another good way of being able to access information about what we do and where we're at at the moment of the organization. Fabulous. Thanks for sharing that. I'm definitely going to check that out, take a better look at that. I think we're going to wrap it up pretty quickly. But Ash, I want to ask, as I do everybody, what is one thing that you would change about RMIT if you could? If I could. And it was completely my own opinion. I'd provide more resources to the staff at the university because we are a university and are governed by, I guess, a broader parent that has many, many courses. In my own opinion, I feel that the fees that we pay aren't adequately distributed to our programs, that they go more towards other programs. And it's very disheartening to see how I think some of the staff, you know, they just, they'd never admit it, but they work very, very hard and provide a very good level of education. We have a very good teaching staff at RMIT. And I feel like if they had more resources, it would make their job a lot easier. And, you know, it would attract even more staff to the program. So in an ideal world, which it definitely isn't, yeah, I'd love our program to probably get the money that it deserves, but that's the state of play at the moment. And in some respects, I guess we're lucky to still have a program. So, yeah, very happy. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that aspect. It sounds like being part of a larger university would have a lot of benefit, but I can imagine that you kind of feel sometimes pushed to the side when there are other bigger programs. It's kind of like sports in the United States in the collegiate arena. You know, those sports like lacrosse or women's volleyball just don't get the funds when football, American football, is so popular, and they get almost all of the money. Yeah, exactly. I guess chiropractic isn't as sexy or as politically, through the eyes of certain politically-minded people isn't, doesn't warrant the funding that it's probably due. But that's how it is. You just got to persevere. Chiropractic may not be sexy, but the chiropractic students we definitely are. Oh, definitely agree. So what is your favorite thing about RMIT, though? The students and the staff. I know that probably sounds a little bit cliche, but like a lot of things in life, the people make it. And people in my year, people in other years, and the passion of the staff, it drives your internal passion. And it affirms to me why I made the switch from a good finance job into going back as a 24-year-old to study chiropractic and being poor for another five years while I studied. That just keeps my passion burning, and I count myself very lucky. That's great. I'd like to wrap it up by sharing our tick picks. And I think you already mentioned yours. Yeah, so for students that are, I mean, I've got a lot out of the WCCS as an organization in terms of opening my mind to what's going on in the world of chiropractic. Things like your podcast as well. It's a great way of being able to find out more about studying chiropractic in other schools, because I feel it's really important. So if you're all interested in finding out what's happening at other schools globally, it's a good way of engaging yourself in that environment. Great. Thanks for the bit of a plug there. My tick pick this week is Motion Palpatient Institute. As you guys mentioned, there are a lot of techniques and seminars that you can take outside of school. And this was the first one that I've done. And it's motionpalpatient.org is the website for it. And what I like about it is that they're not trying to lock you into one technique. They use a lot of different techniques. And they cover diagnosis, adjusting, rehab exercises. They use a lot of dynamic neuromuscular stabilization, or DNS, which is becoming very popular around here. Some functional movement systems, and Yanda, which is a soft tissue, mainly, protocol of treating and correcting muscle imbalances and that type of thing. And it was a lot to learn in one weekend. We went through probably 100 different tests and exercises in just under, I think, 10 hours. So a lot to learn. And this is just the lower extremity. They do upper extremity, lower extremity, spine, three different seminars that you can do. But I really liked it. And for my first technique seminar, I really learned a lot. So it was really great. So it's motionpalpatient.org. You can check that out. Well, Ash, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me on Exploring Chiropractic today. Thank you very much for the opportunity. And I want to thank Mark. And I'm so sorry that we couldn't keep him on for longer. There are a few other questions I wanted to get to. But it's the nature of the internet. And I'm really grateful that he reached out and got in touch with me a few months ago, and that we finally could find a time to meet together. Definitely. Not saying it's right. All right, well, for more information on RMIT, what's the website, Ash? www.rmit.edu.au. And if you go through the health science page, you'll arrive at Chiropractic. And it should be some information on the website that can explain it all better than I can. And we'll post all that information at exploringchiropractic.com. Please tune in for some upcoming episodes. As I mentioned with Barcelona, I'm going to be branching out a bit and interviewing some doctors as well. And having to hang out with a bunch of students across the world that are involved in social media and talking about why Chiropractic student might want to get involved in that. Thanks again, Mark and Ash. And RMIT, this is episode five of Exploring Chiropractic.