Dear group,
  I have long been disappointed in the academic push for entry level PT
programs to adopt higher degree designations.  This does not come from any
deep rooted envy or resentment for those who graduate with higher degrees
than mine.  It comes more from sympathy for my profession and our
clientelle.
  We continue to grow in the public's eyes through increased media exposure
and increased numbers of those who come to us for treatment.  What many of
us see as an essential advancement of our profession, they see as mundane
and superfluous.  Are our patients, other health care providers, and
physicians going to see us in any different of a light merely because we
have a different set of letters after our name?  Speech language
pathologists have (as far as I know) always been at a Masters level of
education.  Yet do we see them as any higher a level of expertise in their
field than the occupational and physical therapists who graduated in years
not-so-distant past with Bachelor's degrees?  Of course not.
  Not even physicians claim a doctorate level of education upon exit from
medical school.  Do we see the medical profession pushing for a "D.M.D."
(although there are some research based PhD MD programs out there)?  Not
hardly.  They don't need to.  They have secured respect throughout society
as being at a high level of expertise in their field without bigger and
bolder designations.
  Claiming a higher entry level education than what we rightly deserve is
not only petty, it's dangerous.  Entry level programs (at least in the
states) do not carry the intensity and development of clinical skills
necessary to allow new grads to advertise themselves as those who are
somehow more knowledgable and better able to treat patients than those who
graduated from "lesser" programs.
  Most entry level Master's programs were nothing more than revamped
Bachelor's programs set at a graduate level.  While I agree more coursework
and preparation is necessary in entry level education, let's not kid
ourselves that a higher degree designation is warranted because of it.
  The push for entry level DPT's will negatively impact our profession in
the following ways:
1.  It thrusts inexperienced therapists into a position of potentially
greater responsibility and authority than what they are equipped to handle.
2.  It adds to the already astronomical escalation in educational costs,
which are not offset by increased wage earnings upon graduation.
3.  It cheapens our profession by belittling those therapists that have
spent many years perfecting their clinical skills at a Bachelor's or
Master's level and who are not able or not interested in pursuing higher
degrees.
4.  It cheapens our profession by undermining the efforts of those who do
sweat and toil to attain higher levels of education post professionally.
Those who have achieved post professional Masters and Doctorates deserve to
be distinguished above others in our profession as reward for their
perseverence and hard work.
  I agree with Patrick that the road to better therapists is not through
higher entry level degrees but through post graduate residency programs.  We
already have a burgeoning of orthopedic residencies in the US, CAPTE needs
to capitalize on this and concentrate on building better specialists in our
profession.
  You would never let a general practitioner perform open heart surgery on
your mother, why would you send her to therapy for her back with a PT who
has had no advanced training in orthopedics?  Entry level therapists need
specialty training in the field they choose to go into, not higher degrees.

Warm Regards,
Geoff Mosley, PT, NCS
MRC
Mt. Vernon, MO