May 1991

Cassata maintains founder's legacy

Donald Cassata is proud of Northwestern College's tradition and heritage.

"We have had an exciting history that has been relatively quiet."

He also is very proud to be only the second president in the college's 50‑year existence.

"Northwestern has been a college that didn't have a (Joseph) Janse, a B.J. (Palmer) ‑ it had a John Wolfe. He was president of Northwestern for 43 years, longer than B.J., longer than anybody," said Cassata.

Since he has taken the torch from Wolfe seven years ago, the 50‑year‑old Cassata has a direct focus on what direction he will be leading Northwestern into the 21st century.

"I've taken the position at the college to focus on looking at chiropractic care of the elderly, children, women, the effects of chiropractic care on prenatal, holistic health and the overall quality of life."

"We want to look at chiropractic care of pregnant women and how it affects the health of the newborn child. Other areas include occupational health and physical rehabilitation. We're also doing the usual musculoskeletal studies," said Cassata.

Northwestern recently received a $100,000 grant from the Federation of Chiropractic Research and Education (FCER). "We're going to do a comparative study of chiropractic care and migraine headaches. We'll do a comparative study with a medical doctor who will be using traditional pharmaceutical treatment versus chiropractic treatment," said Cassata.

He believes that Northwestern has carved out its own niche in the chiropractic educational community. "Each college has a particular emphasis. National emphasizes biomechanical aspects, Palmer emphasizes more of the basic sciences, Logan their ergonomic center and LACC is working on standards of care.

"Northwestern has taken a major leadership role in doing outcome assessment. On a broad base of that aspect, I take the position that I don't want the profession to be identified solely with back care doctors. I think that is the wrong direction and that it is too limiting for chiropractic."

Cassata said the college's outcome assessment will "demonstrate not so much on how chiropractic works, but that chiropractic works. Many practitioners say chiropractic works, but it hasn't been adequately documented."

He also believes Northwestern, like other chiropractic colleges throughout the country, have developed into "quality institutions and are providing quality education to our learners. As a profession, there is no back seat that we have to take in relationship to medical education."

The establishment of a patient care/research center has helped Northwestern establish itself as a leader in research. Cassata said the primary purpose of these faculty‑operated centers is documenting clinical outcomes. These centers, along with the usual patient clinics, will help authenticate the college's role as a patient care center as well as an educational center.

Northwestern also has five teaching health care clinics in the metropolitan area which Cassata said resemble teaching hospitals. "Since chiropractors are the best ambulatory care providers, that's what we're demonstrating. I know from my background that there isn't a better trained or prepared practitioner who approaches patients on an outpatient basis than a chiropractor."

Speaking of backgrounds, Cassata has a doctorate's degree in health care psychology. He spent 14 years in family medicine as a professor and a holistic and primary care provider. He was a professor of family medicine and director of behavior medicine at the University of Minnesota and the University of North Carolina.

Cassata said the transition from family medicine to chiropractic "is not that great of a transition if you perceive both practitioners as being specialists in an ambulatory care setting and you both have the objective to dealing with the whole person.

"Philosophically, I have always tried to get family practitioners to be conscious of caring for the whole person, to be involved with patient education, to understand what the healing process was and how healing did come from within and how patients needed to be responsible for their health. That's chiropractic."

Concerning his predecessor, Dr. Wolfe, Cassata said Dr. Wolfe founded Northwestern because "he felt he was not adequately educated in the basic sciences.

"Northwestern established a strong basic science program and a chiropractic program. He minimized a lot of the B.J. Palmer rhetoric and tried to establish as much of a scientific foundation. I think the college has been doing that for 50 years and I think Dr. Wolfe was a leader in accreditation."

Cassata said he has been working for the past seven years on making Northwestern a recognized national and international college. "I really do believe it is known throughout the world."

"It's been an institution that has put a very significant emphasis on quality education and as strong as possible, given the resources, a clinical training program which provides balance with basic sciences."

"The research aspect and the research part of the mission has been something we believe is an imperative for the profession and the imperative for the development of new knowledge, not only for demonstrating the efficacy of chiropractic (which is important), but also we've got to put more stress on the importance of research for the development of new knowledge that comes back into the classroom as well as goes into postgraduate education."

Taking this another step forward, Cassata used Northwestern's growing interest in the elderly as an example of the college's forward‑thinking process. "If we were asked by the Administration on Aging or Select Committee on Aging to demonstrate that chiropractic has a major role in the care of the elderly in this country, I know of only one study that was done. We've got to start thinking that way."

Concerning the future of the college and chiropractic, Cassata sees the next decade as a time to work on qualitative growth; trying to establish greater financial stability; a greater, more select enrollment; and a greater share of caring for the public.

"We want to ensure that chiropractic has its rightful place in the health care delivery system. As our new students come in and when they graduate, we want them to be doctors of chiropractic."