Up until fairly recently, osteopathy has been viewed by the medical profession as a quack therapy. To some extent some of the older generation of Doctors may still have this view.
However thankfully times have moved on and osteopathy is now recognised by the NHS and there are even some osteopaths working within the NHS. It is easy to see why osteopathy was seen as quackary, because there isn’t a lot of documented evidence on the efficacy of the techniques used, mainly because there just isn’t the finding available.
The level of training student osteopaths have to go through to qualify as an osteopath is very much the same as what doctors have to study in their medicine degrees (certain colleges emphasisng different aspects more than others). The only difference is; osteopathic students have to do more anatomy and hands on work whereas medical students have to learn more pathology and pharmacology (even though osteopaths have to learn that too).
Throughout our training we need to know how to take blood pressure, reflexes, test the neurological system, screen for Red Flags, assess the cardio-respiratory system and more.
Osteopaths are trained to such a level that they should be able to tell when something is not right and know when to refer to other clinicians for further investigations. There have been a number of occasions where patients have come in to the clinic who have either not been to see their GP or where their GP has missed something and we have picked up on it. It is times like this where we are a hugely valuable extension to the already overstrained medical system.
So yes, osteopathy is a recognised and now mainstream medical profession.