ABOUT OSTEOPATHIC LYCEUM

Committed in Delivering the Highest Quality Osteopathic Education

The curriculum for training a full fledged osteopathic practitioner at the Osteopathic Lyceum is based on best practices in the field of Health Science Education. The cognitive subjects (anatomy, physiology, history, osteopathic theory, philosophy of science and research methods) will be primarily delivered in an asynchronous online manner with synchronous check-ins to ensure understanding and progression.

The technical subjects (osteopathic manual methods) will be primarily delivered in-person on a monthly basis (4 consecutive days a month) where assessment and feedback will be provided consistently. The aim of the program is to generate effective practitioners and this will be achieved through a competency by design approach.

Competency by design is an approach that uses effective assessment to prove the capacity of a student to be trusted to deliver safe and effective service to the public. As an extremely unique element, the Osteopathic Lyceum will support students through the process of executing a mandatory experiment-based thesis. The experiment-based thesis will be a practical application of the scientific method to deepen the knowledge of both the individual student and the profession at large.

Not only will students of the Osteopathic Lyceum be extremely effective practitioners, they will also be competent experimental researchers who will be able to utilize both skill sets to identify the appropriate methods to help patients under their care which will include referring out when prudent.

Curriculum Highlights | Structure

Anatomy | asynchronous and online*

Physiology | asynchronous and online*

History | asynchronous and online*

Philosophy of Science and Research Methods | asynchronous and online as well as in-person

Osteopathic Manual Methods | in-person (minimum of 648 hours of in-person supervised instruction with feedback)

Thesis | experiment-based (in-person and online training to develop, execute, write, and defend your experiment)

*asynchronous and online (aka at your pace within a curriculum level)

The program at the Osteopathic Lyceum requires personal responsibility while allowing flexibility in day-to-day life. The ideal student is self-motivated and will be supported in achieving both excellence as a practitioner as well as a knowledge creator for the profession.

MISSION STATEMENT

Tomorrow Starts Now

At the Osteopathic Lyceum, our central aim is to both teach the profession of osteopathic manual therapy as well as to examine its methods to improve both the understanding of those methods and improve their effectiveness. In order to achieve these goals we will embark upon an examination of current knowledge within the profession alongside regular experimentation with osteopathic methods.

OSTEOPATHIC LYCEUM PHILOSOPHY

Learning With No Bounds

At the Osteopathic Lyceum we have very clear philosophical grounding. The term "Lyceum" is used in specific relation to Aristotle and his behavior after leaving the Academy (Plato's school). At the Academy, knowledge was built through discussion and conclusions were acceptable if the discussions were appropriate even without observation of physical phenomena. Aristotle, at the Lyceum, chose to include observation of physical phenomena as well as previous knowledge in the form of building a library. Further, at the Lyceum, students wrote treatises from their observations of physical phenomena. While this description is very simplified it helps set the stage for our philosophy at the Osteopathic Lyceum. Our grounding concepts are as follows:

1. Osteopathic manual therapy is a physical phenomenon

2. As a physical phenomenon we focus on what is observable and what may be done about those observations, not what may be thought about those observations

3. Training physical skills should leverage previous knowledge that is shown to optimize physical skills (aka we will teach and learn the physical aspects of the profession in a way that has been shown to improve that aspect)

4. Training cognitive skills should leverage previous knowledge that is shown to optimize cognitive skills (aka we will teach and learn the cognitive subjects of anatomy, physiology, philosophy of science, osteopathic history, and so on in a way that has been shown to improve that aspect)

5. Students both learn and generate knowledge and, as such will carry a large amount of responsibility for their own learning within a framework that provides them access to required material as well as completing an experiment-based thesis

At the Osteopathic Lyceum, we acknowledge that some phenomena are better investigated through a positivist epistemology (physical motion of patients, motor skills of practitioners, anatomy, physiology) and some are better investigated through a constructivist epistemology (affective experience of the patient and practitioner, patient reports of sensation). We do not take one stance on epistemology (theory of knowledge), we attempt to choose the most appropriate epistemology for the question at hand. In totality, at the Osteopathic Lyceum, we will engage in activities that improve the knowledge and skills of students as well as activities that improve the knowledge and skills of the profession, hence our central slogan of "where knowledge and skills grow together).