Implementation of an osteopathic manipulative medicine clinic at an allopathic teaching hospital: a research-based experience.

Mastery of osteopathic palpatory skills and the skilled delivery of osteopathic manipulative treatment is a life-long venture that demands from practitioners increasingly sophisticated manual skills. Specific receptors and neural networks within the brain allow for the gradual development of refined manual skills that parallel responsive alterations and refinements that develop with repeated experience. During clinical training, most graduates of colleges of osteopathic medicine are not given opportunities to hone their palpatory skills. This is unfortunate because there is an increasing public demand for the nonpharmacologic treatment modalities osteopathic physicians could supply. At Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Mass, a major teaching affiliate of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, the authors assembled a team of osteopathic and allopathic physicians to found an osteopathic manipulative medicine clinic. In this article, the authors share their experience in the creation of this research-based osteopathic medical clinic.