In Switzerland, osteopathy is a licensed profession but is not considered as an academic program. This means that osteopathy is not offered at any state Swiss university.
“In 2007 Switzerland passed a law to regulate the practice of osteopathy, which had previously been controlled by each individual canton. Although many cantons had already fully recognized the practice of osteopathy, on 1 January 2007 the Swiss Conference of the Cantonal Ministers of Public Health published directives to the cantons on the regulation of osteopathy and set up a list of requirements to qualify for the Inter-Cantonal Osteopathy Diploma.
Since 2007 these requirements have included 5 years of full-time study and a 2-year internship”. “The Swiss School of Osteopathy in Lausanne was founded in 1991, and is one of two centres training osteopaths in Switzerland. Students complete five years of fulltime university training before working for two years as interns” (281).
Osteopathy is registered in the EU regulated professions database as follows:
Osteopath is a directly related regulated profession with title “Osteopath(DE)/ Ostéopathe(FR)” recognized under Directive 2005/36/EC (5), ID 10323. System of recognition and application level to be checked. All regions. Qualification level: undefined
(7).
5. DIRECTIVE 2005/36/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 7 September 2005 on the recognition of professional qualifications (Text with EEA relevance) (OJ L 255, 30.9.2005, p. 22) Amended up to March 2011, (2005).
7. The European Commission. Regulated professions database. Brussels: EUROPA; 2011 [cited 2012 February 10, ]; Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/qualifications/regprof/index.cfm?fuseaction=regProf.index.
281. Grangier N. What is the status of osteopathy in Switzerland? Lausanne 2011 [cited 2011 November 2]; Available from: http://www.osteopathelausanne.com/osteopathy.htm.
