Program Overview
The Doctor of Physical Therapy program consists of two programs: an on-site parent program and a hybrid PTA to DPT Bridge program. The curriculum can best be described as a hybrid curriculum, with foundational sciences and basic physical therapy skills taught in the first year in integrated fashion. The focus is on patient management in each of four physical therapy practice areas: musculoskeletal, neuromuscular, cardiopulmonary, and integumentary. Four trimesters of the program contain a clinical decision making course, which is a case based small group course designed for advanced mentoring in clinical decision making algorithms. Thirty-six weeks of full-time clinical practice are included in the curriculum, as well as a professional development track containing concepts in legal/ethical issues, practice management, and professionalism issues. Evidence-based practice courses are strategically placed in the curriculum to allow small groups of learners to develop research questions, collect data, and draw conclusions from the evidence regarding physical therapy principles under the mentorship of faculty.
Clinical Education
Thirty-six weeks of full-time clinical practice are included in the curriculum, as well as a professional development track containing concepts in legal/ethical issues, practice management, and professionalism issues. Clinical education is an essential and exciting part of physical therapist education. Students will be representing William Carey University in diverse and exciting clinical settings, and the faculty expects great things as students demonstrate clinical practice excellence and Christian compassion.
William Carey has a mission of providing health care professionals to areas that are medically underserved. In accordance with this mission, at least one of each student’s clinical experiences will occur in a low-resource, rural area. The physical therapy program requires mentored practice in a variety of practice settings occurring along the continuum of care typically provided by physical therapists. Meeting the requirements for low-resource area, variety of practice settings, and continuum of care are the primary decision-makers for student assignment to clinical education sites.
Each student participating in clinical education will be assigned to clinical experiences in four practice settings: acute care, rehabilitation, outpatient, and one elective area. Students may request a general location for clinical experiences, but assignments are made based on meeting the requirements of the program. Students are responsible for arranging and paying for travel, lodging, healthcare, and any additional expenses related to clinical education. Students are expected to travel out of state, and may be eligible for international clinical experiences.
We are very excited about clinical education at William Carey. Our emphasis on low resource areas and medically underserved populations in Mississippi, the United States, and internationally distinguishes Carey clinical education from typical physical therapy programs. We invite students and physical therapy clinicians to join us as we “Expect Great Things from God, Attempt Great Things for God” through our clinical education program.
This is a lock-step, cohort educational program. Each student must pass the previous semester at a satisfactory level to proceed to the next level.
Program Admission Requirements
Students will be admitted to the PTA to DPT bridge program in the Fall term of each year, based on the following requirements:
1. Education
a. Bachelor’s degree
- Earned bachelor’s degree (any discipline) from a regionally accredited college or university, or
- Enrolled in the final year of undergraduate study at a regionally accredited institution
OR
b. Alternate Non-Bachelor’s Route
- Students may complete three years of undergraduate education that includes lower and upper-division coursework AND meets the Minor-Equivalent Requirement
- Minor-Equivalent Requirement: Upper-division coursework (300-400 level) in one discipline (e.g., Biology, Psychology, Exercise Science, Mathematics)equivalent of a minor at the institution
2. Coursework
- Complete all required prerequisite courses (no limit on when these courses were taken) or have no more than 2 outstanding courses (maximum of 8 hours) at the time of application
- Minimum prerequisite GPA: 3.0
- All pre-requisite courses must have been completed with a C or higher.
- Repeated courses will only be considered once towards the above credit hour requirements
- Minimum overall GPA of 3.0, or 3.0 in the last 60 hours of undergraduate/graduate coursework
3. Graduate Record Examination (GRE)
- Submit official GRE scores (taken within the last 10 years) by the application deadline
- Minimum combined Quantitative+ Verbal score: 290
- Analytical Writing score must also be reported
4. Licensure & Experience
- Hold an unencumbered PT A license
- Applicants must have practice experience as a licensed PT A totaling the equivalent of two full-time years. Part-time experience may be aggregated to meet this requirement.
5. Pre-Requisite Course Requirements
| Statistics (math, psychology, or education) | 1 course |
| Two Biological Science courses | 2 courses, Excluding Botany and Zoology |
| Chemistry I and II | 2 courses in sequence |
| Physics I and II | 2 courses in sequence |
| Human Anatomy (preferred) | 1 course |
| Human/General Psychology (preferred) | 1 course |
| OR | |
| Anatomy and Physiology (I and II) | 2 courses in sequence |
| Psychology | 1 course |
| Medical Terminology | encouraged |
*Business statistics will not fulfill the statistics course requirement
*All science pre-requisite courses must be for science majors and require a lab
*No more than 2 pre-requisite courses can be outstanding upon completion of the Fall term of the year of application
*Applicants must have a grade of C or better in all pre-requisite courses
