Physiotherapy v/s chiropractic?!

Have you looked at Osteopathy also?
This is another option.
If you want to do any of these a back ground knowledge in chemistry and Biology is required.
You don't have to have A' levels and can do an access course instead.

The entry requirements for osteopathy used to be quite loose but now that most of the teaching institutions have full funding this no longer applies. If you are a mature student (like I was) the A lecvel requirements are more fluid but you will usually have to complete an access course like Access to medicine or a chemistry and biology A level equivalent.

Chiropractic is likely to be similar.

Your chances of getting a job choosing Osteopathy chiropractic or Physiotherapy are excellent.
Which ever you choose you will be a primary care practitioner. You will also have a transferable skill which you can take with you to most of the developed world.

Doing Osteopathy cost me about 60,000 sterling. 22,000 of that was fee's the rest was living expenses etc.. It all came out of my own pocket. The funding has changed since then.

If you do physiotherapy, on placements you are generally not renumerated.
The course is 3 years and you qualify as a junior physio where you work under supervision. This you are paid although not a lot.

Chiropractic and osteopathy are 4 years +. All the clinical supervision is done pre-qualification (1000 hours).
Once you qualify you are not supervised.

As a physio you generally get employed on a salary and in the UK mostly by the NHS. There are 35,000 physios in the UK but only 5000 or so do private practice.

Osteo's usually go and work for a principle on a 50:50 Split (60:40 if you are lucky) and get paid according to how much they work. If you treat 1 patient a day you won't make a lot if you treat 14 a day you will. You will pay your registration and insurance but the principle should cover all the other costs such as advertising, premises, bills etc.
A few osteo's have NHS contracts paid on a per patient basis. even fewer work directly for the NHS.
The average osteopath makes around 60 - 80K in the UK. If the NHS offered me 60Kto work full time i'd turn it down flat for all the hassle. Usually they will offer you around 25K..... As you can see it doesn't attract the best practitioners.


Chiro's tend to be much more aggressive in marketing so you are more likely to get a salaried position as a new graduate but many also work on a similar business model to osteopaths.

We tend to attract patients with the same needs so there is some real competition. However a good chiro, osteopath or physio will be patient centred, draw on their experience and treat a patient based on their needs. Although the philosophy may be different a practitioner from either of these fields can be very similar in practice.

Osteo's tend to have a better relationship with the medical and allied medical professions than chiro's but this is not always the case and when I practiced in the UK some GP's would throw my referral letters in the bin rather than read them. Most were fine.and got along quite well with us.

If you work for a hospital even if you are a rubbish practitioner you will always have a job. In private practice unless you are extra-ordinarily good at marketing you will go broke if you don't get your patients better.
When patients aren't paying for treatments they will usually keep going for as long as they are told if they have no improvement.
When they pay good money, if they aren't any better after 3 treatments at most, you won't see them again. You also won't get any patients from recomendations if they don't improve.

NZ registered Osteopath.