Blog

The field of physical therapy has grown considerably in the last 15 years from a bachelor’s degree to a full doctorate level education; however, in practice I have found that many individuals are either unaware or unclear what this current level of education truly is.

More than 99% of physical therapy programs in the United States are now accredited doctorate-level degrees. The programs have gone from two to three years of year round course work and internships in the clinic. We now go through course work to help prepare for the recently implemented direct access. If you have not heard of direct access or #FastPassPT as we say at Rausch PT, it means that an individual can come directly off the street to get an evaluation by one of us physical therapist without seeing your primary care physician.

Here at Rausch, we physical therapist have taken the necessary course work, studied beyond our graduation date and worked in the clinic to be able to evaluate you as a patient and determine one of two things: 1) you are fit for physical therapy and lets get you going or 2) there are some red flags here and we can refer you to a specialist or your general practitioner.

This speeds along your healing process by getting you and because of the extra education we can safely diagnosis and get you going on the right path. I did however want to clear up a common misconception we as PTs hear all the time in the clinic. We do not have our Ph.D or M.D. degree. These two degrees are research and clinically specific degrees that require more schooling and residency programs. Our doctorate level education is that of similar qualifications to a chiro, dentist, lawyer and psychologist. These separate but very important doctorate level programs allow as stated for more specific and detailed learning about one area of the medical progression. Of course we can go further and get these specialized degrees but currently our programs offer a different tear of specialization. This allows us the opportunity to learn an extreme amount about a very specific category of physical therapy.

Hopefully this definition and understanding will help to clear up some of the confusion that individuals have when learning about our degree. Knowing the background of your physical therapist will go a long way to helping you understand what this field truly is. We as therapist here at Rausch must and will continue to push the envelope on knowledge within the field of sports and orthopedics to give our patients the most updated and current methodologies of treatment. We also continue to push to the public what a great field this is and how treatment but also prevention will changes lives for the long haul and not short term.