National University of Health Sciences (NUHS) recently signed an agreement to bring chiropractic care to Veterans at the Bay Pines VA Healthcare System, located just north of St. Petersburg, Florida.

Under the agreement, NUHS will hire a full-time chiropractic physician (DC) who, along with student interns, will work at Bay Pines as part of its Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Department.  Bay Pines will provide both the facilities and equipment for the NUHS DC and interns. This will be the first time Bay Pines has offered on-site chiropractic care as part of its medical services to Veterans.

Initially, NUHS hopes to assign up to two chiropractic interns to the Bay Pines facility, expanding the number of clinical opportunities for NUHS students.

“This is a mutually beneficial agreement in that we are bringing chiropractic care to Veterans along the Gulf Coast, as well as expanding opportunities for our students,” says Dr. Theodore Johnson, dean of clinics at NUHS. “The interns will have a chance to work in a unique environment, treating a different population than they might otherwise see.”

Like all NUHS clinical internships and hospital rotations, the internships at Bay Pines will be open to students from both the NUHS Illinois and Florida locations. The internships will be filled selectively through application, ensuring that candidates meet GPA and performance standards.

NUHS will begin offering chiropractic medical services at Bay Pines in early 2014.  The university’s current clinics in Florida include the NUHS Whole Health Center-Pinellas Park, a community integrative medicine clinic, as well as the NUHS Whole Health Center-SPC, a chiropractic clinic serving the students, faculty and staff of St. Petersburg College.

“We’re proud to be part of a nationwide effort to expand Veterans’ access to chiropractic medicine,” says President Joseph Stiefel of NUHS.