While the number of French osteopaths continued to skyrocket in recent years, the General Direction of the Offer of Care (DGOS) decided not to renew the accreditation of 9 schools of osteopathy, leaving 2,000 students in the blur for this school year.
The DGOS press release of August 23 is clear: “ Some students have not been guaranteed to complete their apprenticeship under the conditions required by the regulations, namely in a progressive manner, with the systematic support of an osteopathic teacher and in the context of consultations. “. As a result, 9 out of 31 osteopathic schools did not see their accreditation renewed after August 31.
The main reason mentioned by the DGOS is the insufficient activity of the internal clinic of these establishments.
All the 9 establishments concerned appealed, either to the administrative court or to the Council of State, in order to request a re-examination of their case.
The lack of clinical practice and supervision at the center of the debate
the decree of December 2014 is formal: the training reference system for osteopathic schools provides for a total of 5,000 hours of training, broken down as follows:
- 1500 hours of lectures
- 1800 hours of tutorials and practical work
- 1,500 hours of clinical practice training
However, some trainers were unable to provide training within the establishments due to an overloaded professional activity.
Indeed, while the decree requires thata pedagogical coordinator must reserve 50% of his time for training within the school, the National Consultative Commission of Approval (CCNA) noticed in a very simple way and without possible questioning, that certain coordinators exercised at least three days a week (and sometimes more), their activity of liberal osteopath to their cabinet.
How? ‘Or’ What ? By consulting their Doctolib agenda! It is also in this way that she realized that the office of some of them were located more than 200 or even 300 kilometers from the school of osteopathy to which they were attached, making their presence the half the time very uncertain …
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How do the representatives of the profession react?
Philippe Le Mentec, national adviser of the Ostéopathes de France association, is very clear: “The files of these schools presented serious shortcomings. The decision not to certify them is logical and the profession sees this positively ”.
He insists on the need to regulate the profession of osteopath, to better protect it. Indeed, while there were 4,000 osteopaths authorized to use the title and an Adeli number in 2002, then 10,000 in 2011, we have no less than 35,000 practitioners today, including 22,000 exclusive osteopaths.
The direct consequences are simple: there is not enough work for everyone to live with dignity from their profession, the inequality gap is widening between professionals, and the average annual profits of liberal osteopaths are declining, as evidenced by the UNASA 2019 report.
Result: what about the 2000 students of these schools?
The Ministry of Health has planned for students from non-accredited schools to be assigned to one of the 22 accredited schools, giving priority to students at the end of their training, who should be able to stay in their region of origin.
But what about first year students? Lalie Meynand, president of the National Federation of Osteopathic Students (FédEO) deplores the ministry’s lack of anticipation and the extremely short deadlines to react to this earthquake in the world of osteopathy. She specifies: “Some first-year students have already decided to postpone their integration until the start of the next school year and to do something else in the meantime. We obtained an exceptional openness for them at Parcoursup, knowing that most of them were not even registered there, convinced of having their place in one of the schools of osteopathy ”.
However, she ends on the importance of the quality of the training offered to the osteopaths of tomorrow.
The establishments that have not obtained the renewal of their accreditation are (to date):
- Bordeaux Osteopathic Institute
- Osteopathic College of the Basque Country
- Higher Institute of Osteopathy Greater Montpellier (ISOGM)
- ISO Paris East (Cetohm)
- Oscar in Strasbourg
- Danhier School of Osteopathy in Paris
- Atman in Nice
- ATSA (Andrew Taylor Still Academy) in Lyon
- IFSO in Rennes
- As well as the following two schools, which did not receive approval following their first request: Ecole d’Ostéopathie de la Réunion and Integrative Osteopathic school in Nice
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