Practice Standards, Infection Control, and Prohibited Conduct
This domain covers the day-to-day standards of practice and the conduct rules that most often appear in discipline cases.
Practice standards
Know the requirements for a proper patient encounter: history and examination sufficient to support a diagnosis, a documented treatment plan, appropriate use of ancillary modalities within scope, and referral when the condition exceeds chiropractic competence. Standards also address office hygiene, equipment safety, and recordkeeping. A recurring trap is assuming that because a modality is available, its use is automatically within scope - it must be justified by training and the statutory definition.
Infection control
Understand standard precautions: hand hygiene, appropriate use of gloves and barriers, cleaning and disinfection of tables and equipment between patients, safe handling of sharps and linens, and staying home when infectious. Know that infection-control compliance is a practice standard, not merely a courtesy, and that failure can support discipline.
Prohibited and unprofessional conduct
Common prohibitions: practicing outside scope, practicing while impaired, aiding unlicensed practice, falsifying records, abandoning patients, and engaging in harassment or exploitation. Boundary violations with patients are treated seriously because of the power imbalance.
Traps
(1) Assuming infection control applies only to invasive procedures - it applies to all patient contact. (2) Assuming a single lapse is never disciplinable - patient harm or risk can suffice. (3) Confusing "unprofessional" with "illegal" - conduct can be unprofessional without being criminal.
Rule of thumb: Ask whether a reasonable, well-trained chiropractor would have done the same under the same circumstances; if not, expect a standards violation.