Our History

The London College of Osteopathic Medicine (LCOM) is the teaching arm of the Osteopathic Trust, and the Osteopathic Association Clinic (OAC) is the clinic arm.

Osteopathic Trusts is a charity (Charity No 31375) formed in 1937 by a group from the early cohort of pioneer Osteopaths who came from the USA. Their purpose was to enable the teaching of osteopathy to registered medical practitioners in the UK, attempting to provide osteopathic treatment at low cost to the local community.

LCOM and OAC are closely linked. The Clinics attract a steady flow of patients who seek relief from a wide variety of musculo-skeletal aches and pains. People can see qualified practitioners or osteopaths in training, who are supervised by qualified tutors. The trainees benefit from the practical opportunity to rehearse their new skills, learnt over a period of a year and a half in weekly techniques tutorials.

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Patients, trainees and tutors as well as our reception staff all share in the learning experience that is created between the College and the Clinics. This creates a supportive environment and an atmosphere of community.

Graduates of LCOM return to the College for regular postgraduate meetings and some continue to work in the Clinics as qualified practitioners. Others re-join as supervising Tutors.

  • In 1927 the Osteopathic Association Clinic in Boston Place was established by members of the British Osteopathic Association, itself created in 1911 as the professional association of osteopaths arriving from the USA less than 20 years after the profession was founded by Dr Andrew Taylor-Still. Initially in Westminster, the Clinic later moved to Dorset Square with clinic facilities in the adjacent Boston Place. The purpose of the Clinic was, and continues to be, to offer osteopathic treatment to the impecunious of London and it was staffed by Doctors of Osteopathy who had recently arrived from the USA. Prior to the Second World War all members of the BOA were graduates from the American Osteopathic Medical Schools.

  • In 1946 the London College of Osteopathy was founded to provide a post-graduate course in osteopathy for medical practitioners who would then be eligible to become members of the BOA. In 1978, the name of the college changed to the London College of Osteopathic Medicine. Although the non-medical osteopathic educational institutions have offered tuition to medically qualified doctors, LCOM is unique world-wide in being specifically dedicated to this purpose. 

    The course at LCOM is currently regulated by the General Osteopathic Council. The Quality Assurance Agency, which assesses many post-graduate institutions in the UK, manages this process. In 1998, with the onset of statutory recognition and regulation, the major professional associations of osteopaths in the UK came together under the title British Osteopathic Association. The Members of the London College of Osteopathic Medicine also set up a post-graduate organisation, the Association for Medical Osteopathy, to support career development and ongoing education of medical practitioners in osteopathy.