Geoff:

Thanks for your comments. Please see below.

| 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.

Have you ever added up the credits for the BS PT programs and compared those
credits with other BS degrees? I know the credits for my BS degree should
have gotten me very close to a MS degree. That is the "official" credits.
Many of my courses did not offer the full number of credits the course
deserved.

 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?

Yes. The title society uses for an autonomous health care practitioner is
Doctor. While many of us currently practice autonomously that level of
practice is not recognized readily by society. The DPT should go a long way
to change that perception.

 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.

Comparing entry level education over a span of many years is dicey. The same
can be said for MDs, DPM, PharmD, AudD etc.

|   Not even physicians claim a doctorate level of education upon exit from
| medical school.

Please explain. My understanding is MDs are awarded a clinical doctoral
degree.

 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.

This statement seems to be a contradiction. The Doctor title is the highest
title in society for a profession. The MD is the biggest and boldest
designation.

|   Claiming a higher entry level education than what we rightly deserve is
| not only petty, it's dangerous.

By what analysis do you make this statement?

  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.

Legally and professionally once you enter a profession you have earned the
rights and privileges associated with that profession. No profession, to my
knowledge, has ever advanced its education and status without
"grandfathering" the people in the profession the continued right to
practice.

The level and type of education that quality DPT programs are doing now far
exceeds my BSPT education. It has been my professional responsibility to
continue to stay current with appropriate practice in 2001 and beyond.

|   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.

See above. Degree granting institutions have a responsibility to award
degrees consistant with the credits earned.

|   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.

This is not the case. The scope of practice is the same, DPT or not.

| 2.  It adds to the already astronomical escalation in educational costs,
| which are not offset by increased wage earnings upon graduation.

I don't see how a DPT after a BS would be more costly than a MS after a BS.
I have not done an analysis. If you have I'd be interested in what you
found.

| 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.

I disagree. As noted above we all have a responsibility to stay current. If
we choose to do this by pursuing a tDPT fine. There are a myriad of other
ways of staying current. No matter what way you choose you will have to put
the time and resources into professional development.

| 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 don't understand this point. I don't see how the DPT takes away from other
post professional degrees.

|   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.

I agree with residencies however it is a separate and distinct issue from
DPT.

|   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

Thanks Geoff.

*******************************************************

Douglas M. White, PT, OCS
Physical Therapist, Consultant
191 Blue Hills Parkway
Milton, MA USA 02186
P: 617.696.1974
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http://DouglasWhite.tripod.com