Dateline: March 17, 2011
Happy St. Patrick’s Day and another Wisconsin Chiropractic Board of Examiner’s meeting in Madison.
The WCEB is moving forward on their plans for a live patient, six-hour state practical exam to “improve the quality of chiropractors in the State” (or to limit the number of chiropractors in the State, depending on whom you talk to).
The Department of Regulation and Licensing (DRL) is still concerned that the exam will lack validity and that the financial aspects of administering such an exam have not been adequately confronted. Since the exam must be “budget-neutral”, the State exam should run in the thousands of dollars for each applicant.
The public in attendance seemed frustrated, especially one DC who broke down as she has moved to Wisconsin but can’t take the board. There is still no exam scheduled for this year, but a promise that there will be one …
Just no promise on what it will be or when it will happen.
they should check into how the cceb.ca does their exam…very high level of intregity.
Mike, I couldn’t agree more. The States also have a four-part national exam that is fair and accurately judges clinical competence. Wisconsin (the WCA & WCEB) has decided that our state needs its own live patient practical exam. There is considerable debate on why they feel this is needed.
The State of Wisconsin is the only State in the union to require this exhaustive, expensive, waste of time, waste of chiropractic skills, waste of potential revenue in the state, exam! To my knowledge no other state requires this additional testing. What in the hell are the Board of Chiropractors looking to accomplish? There are future chiropractors waiting to practice and are being held hostage by a Board supposedly representing their best interests. Shame on the Board!!
This exam is a farce. From what I can determine, at the Apr 2012 examination only 4 applicants were tested and none of them passed. It is my understanding that they have been required to wait an additional 6 months in order to take the next exam. I have been offered a position in WI, but I will end up waiting 6 months in all before I can even take the exam. And there is no indication as to how long it will take to get the results.
Today I received an email stating that I need to remit a fee in excess of $1400 in order to take the practical portion. The most agregious part is that this exam in not offered in lieu of taking Part IV of the National Boards, as is possible in other states, instead applicants must have already passed Part IV in order to take the state exam. There is no doubt in my mind that this has been instituted to keep new graduates and young practitioners out of the state. If the goal were simply to improve the caliber of practitioners, why not do as many other states (including CA, SC, WV, VT) and raise the minimum required score for Part IV. Wisconsin currently requires a score of only 375 in order to qualify. This is the lowest score that the Nation Board of Chiropractic Examiners recognizes as a passing score. If Wisconsin simply raised that minimum Part IV requirement to 475 (the highest current requirement of any state in the US) or even 500 the same goal would be accomplished without putting an undue burden on new graduates and young practitioners.
Dr. Mark, that is the feeling of many WI docs and docs wanting to return to the State. You make some excellent points. There is now a new State association (partly as a result of this exam law) that is working to correct this. You can get more information on their website, http://www.chiropracticsocietywi.org.