The physical therapist works with patients to help improve their strength and mobility, relieve pain, and prevent or limit permanent physical impairment.  A physical therapist’s duties may range from rehabilitation of accident victims, to educating in the schools and community on health issues, to sports-related assessment, conditioning and preventive medicine.

The Pre-requisites:

The necessary prerequisite courses vary significantly among institutions.  However, most physical therapy programs require:

**Additional coursework in the social and behavioral sciences is strongly recommended.

Students can learn more about core prerequisite course requirements for each physical therapy program at the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) web site (http://www.apta.org).  Once at this web site click on Education then Accreditation, and then Directory of Accredited Physical Therapy Education Programs.

There is no centralized application process for physical therapy programs therefore each school must be applied to individually.  The standardized test required for entrance into most physical therapy programs is the Graduate Record Examination (GRE).

Typically, a student needs a minimum GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale.

The Education and the Degree:

All physical therapists are college graduates.  Currently, baccalaureate, master’s and doctoral degree training programs exist in the field of physical therapy.  However, the trend is to eliminate baccalaureate degree programs in favor of graduate degrees.  It is predicted that by 2020 the Doctorate in Physical Therapy (DPT) will be the degree of choice for practitioners.  The DPT takes 2.5 to 3 years to complete depending on the program.

All physical therapists are also required to take a national examination and be licensed by the state in which they practice.