May 30, 2024  
2024-2025 Graduate Catalog 
    
2024-2025 Graduate Catalog

Physical Therapy, DPT


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MISSION
The ULM Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program strives to develop diverse, high functioning practitioners and leaders who will partner with community members to produce meaningful and sustainable change.

VISION
The ULM DPT program will serve as a model of excellence for workforce develepment and research addressing movement-related health disciplines.



GENERAL INFORMATION
Core Values
The core values are the fundamental beliefs of our program.  The ULM DPT core values are accountability, adaptability, collaboration, cultural humility, inquisitiveness, integrity, and purposefulness.

Guiding Principles
The guiding principles create the philosophy by which the program will guide its goals, strategies, and activities. The guiding principles that create the ULM DPT culture include catalytic ignition, compassion, education, leadership, movement expertise, people driven, and resilient.

Curricular Threads
The curricular threads are the integrated themes that unite individual courses within a curriculum. The ULM DPT curricular threads are business acumen, evidence-based or informed practice, service and research, clinical reflection, reasoning and judgement, health humanities, movement science, pain science, and professional formation. 

Accreditation
The University of Louisiana Monroe is seeking approval from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) to offer the Doctor of Physical Therapy and accreditation of a new physical therapist education program from teh Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE) with an intended matriculation date of August 2022. 

Approval is pending with SACSCOC and is required before a program can be offered. The program is planning to sumbit an Application for Candidacy to CAPTE in March 2022, which is the formal application required in the pre-accreditation stage. Submission of this document does not assure that the program will be granted Candidate for Accreditation status. Achievement of Candidate for Accreditation status from CAPTE is required prior to implementation of the professional phase of the program; therefore, no students may be enrolled in professional courses until Candidate for Accreditation status has been achieved. Further, though achievement of Candidate for Accreditation status signifies satisfactory progress toward accreditation, it does not assure that the program will be granted accreditation. 

Graduation from a physical therapy education program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE), 1111 North Fairfax Street, Alexandria, VA 22314; phone 703-706-3245; accreditation@apta.org is necessary for eligibility to sit for the licensure examination, which is required in all states. 

Core Curricululm


DOCTOR OF PHYSICAL THERAPY PROGRAM
The Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program at ULM will focus on addressing health disparities and meeting the needs of rural communities.   The American Physical Therapy Association states that “physical therapists (PTs) are movement experts who optimize quality of life through prescribed exercise, hands-on care, and patient education.” Students who pursue a Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) degree can work in a variety of clinical settings. Physical therapists also work as educators, healthcare administrators, researchers, information technologists, and many other positions.

Students applying for admission to the Doctor of Physical Therapy program will be expected to meet the following criteria:

  • An earned bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited college or university
  • Minimum undergraduate cumulative, or most recent 60 semester credit hours, GPA of 3.00 (using a 4.0 scale)
  • Minimum prerequisite GPA of 3.00 (using a 4.0 scale)
  • Complete all prerequisite courses with a grade of C or better
  • Two letters of recommendation: including one letter from a physical therapist, and one letter from either an educator or community leader
  • At least 30 hours of paid or volunteer physical therapy observation or experience supervised by a licensed physical therapist. If multiple sites are used, a minimum of 8 hours is required per site

Prerequisite Courses (credit hours)
Science and Mathematics prerequisites: 
Chemistry with laboratory for science majors (8), Biology with laboratory for science majors (8), Physics with laboratory for science majors (8), Advanced Biology sophomore level or higher (3), Human Anatomy and Physiology with laboratory separate or combined courses (8), Mathematics College Algebra or higher (6), Statistics (3).

Non-Science prerequisites: English Composition (6), Advanced English Composition or Technical Writing (3), Psychology (6), Public Speaking (3).

Plan of Study


PLAN OF STUDY
DPT 2023 Charter Cohort Curriculum
 

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