Beginning in the fall 2012 semester, Sacramento State will have the ability to offer its physical therapy students a Doctorate of Physical Therapy program. This will give the campus three doctorate programs altogether.

The other two offered are the Doctor of Education and the Doctor of Public History.

The state Assembly approved the final legislation of AB 2382 on Aug. 17, 2010, giving the CSU system the authority to offer the Doctorate of Physical Therapy.

“The doctoral program is needed because the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education, the only accrediting authority recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, will only grant accreditation to programs with doctorates beginning in 2015,” according to a Sac State press release.

What this means for Sac State is that the physical therapy department would cease to exist because the commission would not allow the school to have a program that did not offer a doctorate degree. The industry is moving toward having highly qualified therapists ready at a time when more and more Baby Boomers are getting ready to retire, and for some that means retiring from their practices.

However, before the program can be offered, it must go through several different layers of approval said Joseph F. Sheley, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs.

“Sacramento State has been approved to submit an application to become a campus that offers the DPT. We still must work through the various consultative processes here on campus,” Sheley said. “This includes meeting CSU specifications, and gaining approval from the university’s accreditation agency, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. We have every expectation that this will all come together well and that we should begin teaching students in the program in fall 2012.”

The program would have been the fourth doctoral program at Sac State, but late last month the application for a Doctorate of Nursing Practice was denied.

Sheley said the Legislature would only permit three CSU campuses to have the program. He said it came down to placing the program at strategic schools where the greatest numbers of students would benefit in the southern, central and northern regions of the state.

He went on to say that everyone involved in the checks and balances of the campus is working towards the approval of the doctorate, and the measures being taken to see it through.

“The campus curricular approval process has started with the submission of the new degree program proposal to the appropriate college and university committees. In addition, Sac State faculty and administrators are working with the Chancellor’s Office on the details for system approval,” Sheley said. “Finally, the physical therapy department is working with its own accrediting body to meet the standards necessary for their approval.”

Sheley said the Assembly bill would allow the school to set its own regulations on the cost of the program.

“AB 2382 permits us to set our fee structure such that we can accommodate the added resources necessary to offer a doctoral degree of this type,” Sheley said.

With the new doctorate program comes designing of a new course structure to meet the needs of students seeking the degree post master’s. Leading the physical therapy department in this task is Director and Chair of Physical Therapy Susan McGinty.

McGinty said the department is working hard on the new course structure that will take some of the current concepts being taught in the master’s program to the new doctorate, which will allow students to discuss the topics in greater depth.

“We have written a new curriculum that builds on the base that has been established in master’s degree already. It will add some additional course work and rolls some current prerequisites into the program that will allow us to address certain subjects in greater depth,” McGinty said. “We will be hiring new faculty as revenue comes available from the increased fee structure. The structure is based on the current education doctorate fee structure.”

She said the new doctorate will cost Sac State students a bit more than it currently does in the master’s program.

For Sac State students in the physical therapy program, the current cost of getting a master’s is $6,400 per academic year. The two doctoral programs already in place cost $10,500 per academic year.

“Students that enroll in the program will pay 50-60 percent less than they would if they enrolled in a private physical therapist program,” McGinty said.

The final cost of the new program will weave its way through the approval process in academic committees on campus to the chancellors approval and finally to the commission of physical therapy.

At the University of the Pacific in Stockton, a privately funded college, the program will cost students $33,600 per academic year. The program at UOP is a 25-month course, or six consecutive trimesters, and the total cost from beginning to end is about $67,200.

In the current fee structure for a doctorate at Sac State, it will cost a physical therapy student about $31,500 to $33,600 per year for the same length of time.

Having applied to the Master’s in Physical Therapy at Sac State, senior kinesiology in pre-physical therapy student Valerie Eredia is pleased with the news of the program possibly being offered in 2012.

“I would absolutely apply for the program if it was offered at Sac State. Right now the master’s program is linked to a transitional program where you can earn the doctorate,” Eredia said. “So obviously, if the doctorate is here, why not get it done here anyways, rather than wasting time with the transitional program.”

Sac State students wishing to earn their doctorates have the ability to enroll at A.T. Still University’s school of Health Science through an agreement with the department of Health and Human services at Sac State.

Through the agreement, Sac State students can enroll through the online school at A.T. Still. The cost of tuition for the online school is $26,000 per year.

With the new opportunity coming available to Sac State physical therapy students, McGinty, in a statement released by Sac State, said the department is ready to meet the needs of the future therapists.

“Only nine of 212 programs nationally do not offer the doctorate,” McGinty said, “and Sacramento State officials have been looking forward to the day they could bring that level of instruction to their students.”

Matt Harrington can be reached at [email protected]