Code of Ethics

1. Manual osteopaths should adhere to a commitment to the highest standards of excellence and should attend to their patients in accordance with established best practices.
2. Manual osteopaths should maintain the highest standards of professional and personal conduct, and should comply with all governmental and jurisdictional rules and regulations.
3. Therapist-patient relationships should be built on mutual respect, trust and cooperation. In keeping with these principles, manual osteopaths shall demonstrate absolute honesty with regard to the patient’s condition when communicating with the patient and/or representatives of the patient. Manual osteopaths shall not mislead patients into false or unjustified expectations of favorable results of treatment. In communications with a patient and/or representatives of a patient, manual osteopaths should never misrepresent their education, credentials, professional qualification or scope of clinical ability.
4. Manual osteopaths should preserve and protect the patient’s confidential information, except as the patient directs or consents, or the law requires otherwise.
5. Manual osteopaths should employ their best good faith efforts to provide information and facilitate understanding to enable the patient to make an informed choice in regard to proposed manual osteopathy treatment. The patient should make his or her own determination on such treatment.
6. The therapist-patient relationship requires the manual osteopath to exercise utmost care that he or she will not exploit the trust and/or dependency of the patient.
7. Manual osteopaths should willingly consult and seek the talents of other health care professionals when such consultation would benefit their patients or when their patients express a desire for such consultation.
8. Manual osteopaths should conduct themselves as members of a learned profession and as members of the greater healthcare community dedicated to the promotion of health, the prevention of illness and the alleviation of suffering. As such, Manual osteopaths should collaborate and cooperate with other health care professionals to protect and enhance the health of the public with the goals of reducing morbidity, increasing functional capacity, increasing the longevity of the population and reducing health care costs.
9. Manual osteopaths have a professional and moral obligation to ensure that their behavior does not give the appearance of professional impropriety. Any activities that may benefit the practitioner to the detriment of the profession must be avoided so as not to erode the public trust.
10. Manual osteopaths should recognize their obligation to help others acquire knowledge and skill in the practice of the profession. They should maintain the highest standards of scholarship, education and training in the accurate and full dissemination of information and ideas.