The spring annual meeting of OsEAN took place on 15^th & 16^th March 2017 in Saint Herblain, Nantes, France at the IdHEO building right before the days of their 11th Osteopathic International Symposium on the theme of multidisciplinary management of sleep disorders. 16 OsEAN representatives from 13 member schools and 5 representatives of 4 membership candidate schools were present. The representatives of the applicant schools brought a lot of fresh blood and new ideas to the meeting, which showed how much they want to be a part of our network. As usual the meeting was very productive and full of discussions.

This meeting was mainly dedicated to further developing all OsEAN exchange programmes such as the Student Exchange, Teacher Exchange and also Examiner Exchange. Pro and contras were discussed, the ways to motivate students and teachers to participate, the importance of participating, the impact of such programmes on osteopathic education in Europe and what needed to be done in order to make these programmes better. All of the lively group discussions led to a very productive meeting during which a lot of decisions has being taken.

Following the invitation from the European Federation of Osteopaths to present the OsEAN Standard and audit process, OsEAN Secretary and lead auditor Jöry Pauwels joined the EFO meeting on Friday, last week. Jöry was offered 45 minutes of presentation time which he used wisely to explain the audit process and its benefits for osteopathic educational institutions and for osteopathic education in Europe in terms of this process getting osteopathy a step closer to being a recognized health profession. His presentation was well received and followed by a lot of questions which Jöry was more than happy to answer. Jöry himself asked the EFO members to recognize the audit outcome in order to allow alumni from schools who passed the audit to be accepted as members by the professional organizations in EFO, improving alumni mobility.
OsEAN and the EFO will keep working together. We promise to keep you informed about the progress of this cooperation.

The fall annual meeting of OsEAN took place on 16th & 17th November in Berlin at the OSD building right before the days of their famous congress.
22 OsEAN representatives from 18 member schools were present which made the meeting very lively, productive, full of ideas and discussions.

Clinical Tutor Training 1

On September 1^st & 2^nd, OsEAN’s Clinical Tutor Training Lv. 1 took place at the building of FICO Poland in Warsaw.
Osteopathy is a new profession in Poland and new alumni are eager to develop the education in this field. Therefore we decided that Warsaw is the perfect place to start with the training. Apart from the tutoring, osteopaths from different regions in Poland and other European countries met, build bridges and exchanged knowledge and information.

OsEAN is proud to present a brief update on the progress of the auditing process which started in October 2015. OsEAN member schools are being audited by the Austrian Standards Institution (ASI) according to the CEN- Standard “EN 16686 – Osteopathic Healthcare Provision” and the OsEAN-Standard.

So far 5 schools have already completed the whole process and received their certification, 2 are waiting to be approved, 7 schools are scheduled for an audit and another 9 schools have contacted the ASI with the request to be scheduled.

Dear all,

I would first like to say a big Thank you! to Raimund Engel for:

  • the 10 years you gave to construct the building of the Osteopathic European Academic Network, in those years it is a solid Platform for schools to exchange knowledge and ideas in the education of osteopathy.
  • initiating the Open Forum educational conferences, 5 great events which underline the exchange and learning from each other in cooperation, palpation, research, innovation and soft skills.
  • your attention to each member of OsEAN, both within Europe as well as our associated members in Argentina, Canada, and our friends in Australia.
  • connecting people, connecting schools, for your empathy and your full attention. You have created a PBMT (Point of Balanced Member Tension).

On April 22^nd 2016, during the Open Forum in Vienna, Robert Muts took the lead of OsEAN as its new president. He has been vice-president of the organisation for the past six months and member of the board since 2013. Robert’s acceptance speech and big Thank you! to the previous president Raimund Engel moved everyone to tears.

The fifth edition of OsEAN "Open Forum for Osteopathic Education" Conference with the topic "Teaching the Soft Skills" took place on April 21st and 22nd 2016, in Vienna, Austria.
There were 65 participants from 17 countries. Represented were osteopathic schools not only from whole Europe but also from Argentina, Australia, Canada and USA.
The two days programme of the conference included keynote lectures delivered by presenters from the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands and other presentations and workshops in the following areas: osteopath-patient communication, professionalism and ethics, self-regulation and self-care.