A GLOBAL HEALTH OPPORTUNITIES PROGRAM FOR PROFESSIONAL ADVANCEMENT OF PHYSICAL THERAPY STUDENTS: A REFLECTION ON OUR DECADE OF EXPERIENCE

K.-C. Siu¹, J. Norman¹, S. Bills¹, B. Becker¹

¹University of Nebraska Medical Center, Health & Rehabilitation Sciences, Omaha, Nebraska, United States

Background: Qualified faculty to educate the next generation of physical therapists (PT) is essential to the advancement of the profession across the globe. In many Eastern countries, there is an immense need for qualified faculty in physical therapy. Educating future faculty members to teach outside the West, aligns with the purpose of World Physiotherapy to represent physiotherapy across the globe, advance the profession, and enhance access for all to improve health and wellbeing. The Division of PT Education at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) developed the Global Health Opportunities Program (GHOP) for international students with this purpose in mind. GHOP pathway programs are committed to educating a global physical therapy workforce who is well-prepared to return to their home country to teach in academic and clinical environments.

Purpose: To evaluate the GHOP pathway programs for the professional advancement of PT student participants and graduates around the world.

Methods: For a decade, the UNMC Division of PT Education has offered different levels of experiential learning including a short-term exploratory summer program (3-4 weeks), a Master of Science graduate degree emphasizing teaching and technology (MS: 1 year), a Doctor of Physical Therapy professional degree (DPT: 3 years), and a joint collaborative DPT-PhD program (6+ years) with Chang Gung University. Descriptive analysis was performed to evaluate the outcome of the program.

Results: From 2011 to 2021, 88 international PT students have enrolled in at least one of the programs offered through GHOP. Two-thirds of these students completed the summer program. Eight (13.8%) students from this summer program went on to apply and gain admittance into the DPT professional degree program with half of these students also pursuing the 1-year MS in addition to the DPT degree. Of the 12 DPT graduates to date, three primarily work in academia as faculty while the remainder work as clinical instructors within their facilities.

Conclusions: The GHOP pathway programs at UNMC are a successful mode of preparing more qualified PT faculty and advancing the profession internationally. We attract international PT students into a short-term experiential summer pathway program, from which some chose to continue their formal academic training to earn a DPT degree and learn how to become PT educators and excellent clinicians.

Implications: Our global health opportunties program with different durations and degree options could nurture more students to become future PT faculty and clinical instructors globally. A short-term initial experiential learning experience has been found to be a key to our success in engaging international PT students to pursue advanced PT training to return to their home countries as educators and professional role models.

Funding acknowledgements: N/A

Keywords:
Global education
International students

Topics:
Education
Education: continuing professional development
Education: methods of teaching & learning

Did this work require ethics approval? No

Reason: It addresses an unique developments in PT education.