Recent advances in behavioral, biological, and engineering sciences provide exciting opportunities to attack important problems faced by people with disabilities. Scientists with strong backgrounds in rehabilitation, who bring multidisciplinary research approaches to bear on rehabilitation questions are scarce. The goal of this predoctoral training program is to improve the quality and quantity of individuals who will contribute to the knowledge base and practice of physical rehabilitation. This innovative training program, coordinated-through the Department of Physical Therapy, includes outstanding faculty members from four academic units at the University of Delaware. The program fuses two independent training programs: an entry level Masters in Physical Therapy (MPT), designed to train clinical physical therapists, and the PhD in Biomechanics and Movement Sciences (BIOMS). Research concentrations during the PhD portion of the program will include Applied Physiology, Exercise Physiology, Biomechanics, Motor Control, and Rehabilitation Technology. The program is analogous to the MD/PhD programs that are designed to train medical scientists. Students in the proposed program will become both physical therapists and research scientists. Trainees will be selected from a pool of outstanding students with diverse undergraduate backgrounds who apply to admission to the MPT program. Many of these students express an interest in research before admission to the program. Unfortunately because of the sizable debt incurred during graduate school and the opportunity to earn the salaries that clinical, physical therapists enjoy, very few of these students go on to pursue the PhD. This training program will attract the best and brightest individuals who have a sincere interest in physical rehabilitation and research and track them early in their training into research careers. The need and opportunities for these individuals is enormous. The number of entry level Physical Therapy training programs is growing rapidly. Both new and established programs need doctorally trained individuals for teaching and research positions. Graduates of this training program would be ideal faculty members and would foster excellence in rehabilitation research.
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