A growing need for physical therapists is good news for UM-Flint.
The Physical Therapy Program will soon be accepting 60 students per year instead of 40 beginning fall 2010.
Donna Fry, director of the department of physical therapy said, “Over a long period of time there has been a constant increase in the need for physical therapists. In 2008, the American Physical Therapy Association issued a workforce report stating that physical therapist position vacancy rates across a variety of physical therapy settings ranged from 13 percent to nearly 19 percent.
"The UM-Flint Physical Therapy Department faculty wishes to help meet the need of the local, state, and national community to address this workforce need.”
Several physical therapy students are excited about the change as well. Andrew Havens, a third-year physical therapy doctorate said the expansion will be good for the University. “The demand for physical therapists has been exceptionally high since the mid 90s and the current number of PT students has been unable to meet employment demands for the last decade.
"As long as the University is willing to provide adequate and appropriate faculty to support the student expansion, this increase will do nothing but help the program by producing more alumni who are representing UMFlint’s DPT program.”
Havens was hopeful about future careers for physical therapists. “The job market for physical therapists seems unbelievable despite the current state of the economy," Havens said. "Health care overall is one of the few job markets that is continuing to grow.
"From a personal standpoint, I receive two to three different recruitment pamphlets a week for Physical Therapist positions that are dispersed throughout the country.”
Third-year physical therapy doctorate Kira Shoemaker agrees. “[Expansion] will be good for the profession because so many physical therapists are needed. I’m getting three or four e-mails a day from people wanting me to come work for them when I graduate.”
Department expansion will change day-today operations and the size of department faculty. Fry said, “We have been working with University administration to find classrooms to accommodate the increased class size and to plan appropriately to hire new faculty. The efforts for all of this planning came together this fall so that we could proceed with our plan to increase the class size starting in fall 2010.”
Recently, the UM-Flint School of Health Professions and Studies expanded enrollment in the nursing department and a new Doctor of Nursing Practice saw its first students this year.
Stefani can be reached at ststanle@umflint.edu.
Physical therapy program grows
Published: Monday, November 23, 2009
Updated: Monday, August 16, 2010 09:08
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