Graduates of the entry-level Doctor of Physical Therapy program are reflective, adaptable, accountable, and competent to render independent judgements within a framework of collaborative health care practice. Graduates are prepared to practice in a caring, compassionate way with moral sensitivity, social responsibility, and awareness of individual differences. Pre-professional education is grounded in the liberal arts and the natural, behavioral, and social and health sciences. Professional preparation is in the basic sciences, behavioral sciences, applied sciences, health sciences, and the science of physical therapy. Graduates are prepared to examine, evaluate, diagnose, make prognoses, and provide interventions to prevent the onset, symptoms, and progression of impairments, functional limitations, and disabilities that may result from diseases, disorders, or injuries. Understanding professional practice expectations and patient/client management expectations as well as practice management expectations allow graduates to impact health care delivery systems in their communities. Graduates have a life-long commitment to self-directed learning and critical inquiry, recognizing that completion of their professional education is the first phase on a continuum of phases to mastery and competency in physical therapy. Graduates contribute to the profession and society by seeking and disseminating knowledge gained and providing pro bono services.

The program aim is reflected in its curricular philosophy. The curriculum is developed around four tracks, incorporating both traditional and problem-based learning concepts. Each track is composed of courses that find their foundations in the same basic or professional science. The professional track presents material in a manner that develops content from general to applied concepts in professional practice, patient/client management, practice management, clinical decision making, and evidenced based practice. The neurological, musculoskeletal, and general medicine tracks present basic science, applied science in the absence of pathology, and applied science in the presence of pathology within the context of patient care. Across and within the four tracks are common themes that include ethical inquiry and practice, continuous integration of theory and practice across the curriculum, self-management of the learning process by students, and self-reinforcement whereby students learn because they value their growing competence. The curriculum includes both didactic and practical experiences. There is collaborative teaching within and across tracks and the courses with planned redundancy of subject matter. Constant reinforcement of content with clinical experiences occurs through observations of and exposure to patients in academic courses, exposure to clients in the program’s Teaching Laboratory Practice, and integrated clinical education.