WHO benchmark document for osteopathy released

Written by Raimund A. Engel | 01 December 2010

At the beginning of November the WHO benchmarks for osteopathy were finally released after 3 years of delays. By now they are also available for download from the WHO website.
Unfortunately the document has been significantly changed compared to the consensus document that the osteopathic community had produced in 2007.
1. The new "benchmark" document is significantly shorter: only 18 out of 28 pages are dedicated to osteopathy, the rest is a generic introduction about the WHO’s policy on Traditional Medicine/Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

2. All references to the model of osteopathic physicians are missing. This is especially deplorable as the notion of one single worldwide profession with two “demographics” has developed around the joint creation of the original drafts – a vision that might be threatened by this document.

3. In the original draft a sample curriculum with the number of hours for each subject was included in the documents annex. This curriculum is now

part of the main document, and might be misread as a very detailed prescription rather than as an example.

4. The former Annex II was completely left out. This part had contained a quite detailed list of techniques that were supposed to be included in osteopathic training.

On the plus side, most of the important landmarks for non-physisician osteopaths like “diagnosis”, “primary contact profession” or “distinct profession” remained in the document, also the mentioning of the cranial and visceral approach.

In conclusion we think that it’s a start to have the document published – even if it’s not the one we produced. It should cost us less effort to revise and change this existing document in the near future than it took to have it published for the first time.

At a meeting during the OIA's recent conference in San Francisco an international forum of osteopaths decided to complement the WHO benchmark document with an "Osteopathic Consensus Document" built on national registration standards and European standards documents from FORE and the EFO. Such a consensus document from the profession could fill in the huge blanks in the WHO benchmark, and both documents could be presented to health authorities together.

We are convinced that the official publication by WHO will create another important dimension of support for osteopaths who in many countries are struggling for the recognition or survival of our profession! However at the end of the day it will depend on osteopaths in every country to make good use of this opportunity to get into dialogue with universities and governments.

Raimund Engel
WOHO Vice President