Final Year Chiropractic Student Awarded Student of the Year Award by UCA

Hope Beales is a final year Master of Chiropractic student, studying in the AECC School of Chiropractic at Health Sciences University. She was recently awarded Student of the Year at the United Chiropractic Association (UCA) Chiropractic Essentials conference.

Hope tells us more about winning the award and about what originally drew her to study chiropractic. She shares what she loves about studying at the AECC School of Chiropractic and its approach to teaching, as well as her advice for prospective students:

“When I was younger, I did a lot of gymnastics, and I went to see chiropractors as part of that. I thought being a chiropractor sounded interesting, so I wanted to try it; I fell in love with it when I started to do it at university.

“I like a lot about my course. In the first couple of years, you cover a lot of content. There’s a lot to learn about anatomy, physiology, and human function and dysfunction.

“I’m in my placement year now, which is the final year of study. We’re based in the onsite chiropractic clinic and are supported by qualified chiropractors. I really like that I can go to each of the different tutors and they would each have a different perspective on how they would handle their care.

“The tutors all have different experiences and different ways of handling the patient case. You learn a lot from that.”

Being Awarded UCA Student of the Year

“Each year, the UCA holds a conference called Chiropractic Essentials. I’ve been to this conference before, so I knew that there were awards given out. There are awards for chiropractor of the year, chiropractic association of the year, chiropractic student of the year and the Stuart Rynsburger award.

“I had no idea that the chiropractic student award was going to be given to me, so it was a surprise when my name was called out. I had to make up a speech in front of 500 people which was terrifying but I did really love it.

“I can remember them announcing the names of the award winners thinking that will never be something I would get. I have no idea how it happened, but it did!”

Treating the Whole Patient at HSU

“The university does a good job at incorporating different parts of the patient journey on the course. It’s important to be able to treat the patient as a whole. I don’t know many other places that approach treatment and rehabilitation like this.

“Being in my final year, and working in the clinic, I’m not just working in chiropractic. I’m working with physiotherapists, podiatrist and massage therapists. We’re a very multidisciplinary team.

“People can come to us as chiropractors and we can easily refer them to other services that are also based on-site. This makes coming here very accessible for our patients.

“There’s not one part of the patient that we ignore because we have the services here to be able to treat them as a whole person. We have all these different professionals working in the same place.”

Advice for Potential Students

“My advice to any potential students is to absolutely go for it. You don’t have to just go down one route with chiropractic. I think it is important that you experience different branches of chiropractic while you are studying which will open your mind to how you want to practice.

“It’s a very open field to work in, you don’t just have to do one thing. You can find what’s right for you over the course of the degree as you have plenty of years to decide.

“The academic staff are all so helpful at HSU and they are always there to listen to what you want to do and are able to facilitate that.”

Future Ambitions of Teaching

“I work as a Chiropractic Assistant in a local chiropractic clinic. I work on the front desk; welcoming patients, dealing with clients and helping out as much as I can. Being a chiropractic student, I can help out a bit more due to having experience in the field already.

“I am going to graduate and start working there as a Chiropractor Associate. We have such a nice team, and everyone works together which is a nice environment to be a part of. I am excited to start work there.

“I would like to carry on teaching other students too, as I enjoy this. I feel very strongly that students should experience different routes of chiropractic; to be able to go other places and learn different things is really important.

“Where I work as a Chiropractic Assistant, we teach Chiropractic seminars to share our experiences with students.

“I also eventually want to be able to speak about my experiences at a UCA conference and speak to students about where I started and the journey I went on.”

You can read more about the Master of Chiropractic course here.