Changing Face of PT: Schools Work Toward Diversity
Monday August 16, 2010
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When Bernadette R. Williams, PT, DSc, GCS, went to physical therapy school in the mid-1980s, she was the only black person among the students and faculty.
But now, as an associate professor and chair of the department of physical therapy at Hampton (Va.) University, she will be welcoming a much more diverse cohort of students this fall. The incoming class of 24 at the historically black university includes 13 black students, seven white students, and four of Asian descent.
“I think it’s extremely valuable for physical therapy students to be educated in a multicultural environment,” Williams said. “I think it’s important, No. 1, because it reflects our current society that is increasingly becoming more diverse. Because [our students] have the experience of being in a program like this, they have a deeper appreciation and understanding and are more culturally sensitive to people who are not like them.”
Increasing the Numbers
Diversity among physical therapy students across the country has increased over the years, even at institutions that have not historically had high minority enrollment. The percentage of minority student members of the American Physical Therapy Association increased from 6.6% in 1995, to 15.3% in 2010.
While that suggests a favorable trend in educational diversity among all physical therapy students, it is difficult to estimate nationwide just how many minorities attend physical therapy schools, because many schools do not report that information, notes Marie Vazquez Morgan, PT, PhD, an assistant professor in physical therapy at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, and chair of APTA’s Cultural Competence Committee.
What is known, she says, is that “there’s a huge underrepresentation in all of allied health and medicine, not just physical therapy, compared to the general population.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2000 the population was almost 30% minority. The bureau projects that by 2025, that will rise to almost 40%, and, by 2050, almost 50%.
One of the goals of APTA’s Plan on Cultural Competence is to “increase the number of physical therapists and physical therapist assistants from racial/ethnic minority groups to reflect the changing demographics of U.S. society.”
To that end, the organization has set up a minority scholarship fund, diversity and cultural competence publications, a mentoring directory and other resources aimed at improving the recruitment and retention of a diverse group of physical therapists.
“[When you] become more culturally sensitive, you provide better care,” Morgan says. “That’s why it’s so important for us to increase diversity in the physical therapy profession. If we want to provide effective healthcare, we have to have compliance in our patients. We have to attempt to decrease current barriers, whether they’re language-based or cultural, because all of these things affect patient adherence.”
And by having greater diversity on staff, all PTs get exposed to multiple cultures and can develop a greater appreciation and understanding of their similarities and differences, she says.
Working at Recruitment
While Williams has not had to establish any recruitment efforts to attract a diverse student body to Hampton University, other programs have had to work at it. As director of the Health Careers Opportunity Program at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Lawrence Pan, PT, PhD, FAPTA, has taken part in efforts to recruit and retain economically disadvantaged students, 93% of whom are minorities this year.
Efforts to diversify Marquette’s student body as a whole and the physical therapy department in particular date to 1989, when they started a local mentorship program, says Pan, who also is the chair and professor in the department of physical therapy.
Then in 1992, Marquette launched the HCOP when it landed a federal grant offered through Health and Human Services under its Health Resources Services Administration.
“It’s one of the government’s efforts to try to rectify healthcare disparities by addressing workforce disparity,” explains Pan, who writes the grants, secures the funding and advocates for the HCOP programs. “My specific interest is obviously in physical therapy, but included in the HCOP programming here at Marquette is the school of dentistry, the physician assistant studies program, speech pathology and audiology, clinical lab science, and our biomedical sciences program.”
Through field trips and career talks, the HCOP activities engage economically and educationally disadvantaged students (many of whom are minorities) as early as middle school to begin preparing them academically for a career in health professions. Marquette also administers a complementary program sponsored by the HHS through its Office of Minority Health called Youth Empowered to Succeed, which targets Hispanic students at a Milwaukee middle school. Included in that programming is career exploration in health sciences, academic enrichment (especially math and science) and mentorship.
By starting early, the recruitment efforts help develop the youngsters’ dreams and desires to go into healthcare majors such as physical therapy while providing time and training in acquiring much-needed math and science skills.
Marquette’s efforts continue to keep prospective students in the healthcare “pipeline,” Pan says, by offering a Summer Science Enrichment Program for high school sophomores, juniors and seniors. “The summer program helps to cement that interest in health professions, but also works on their science skills, their study skills, professionalism issues, cultural competence,” Pan says. “The summer programs that we offer are oftentimes life-changing for these students because they really see what the commitment is to education. Many of them are first-generation college students.”
Marquette also has two levels of college programs, the College Science Enrichment Program for undergrads, and the Pre-enrollment Support Program for students who have been accepted into different healthcare professional programs. “Once they are in the professions here at Marquette, we have tutors that are available. We have advising for the students, all to support the retention effort,” he says.
Pan estimates that now “probably between 20% and 25% of our students would qualify as disadvantaged. Back when we started, we were focused on minority students. That was the vernacular at that point. We basically had almost zero minority students in the program at that point.”
The payoffs extend beyond the students themselves, Pan notes. “It makes a much richer classroom experience for the others students and for the faculty,” he says. But it takes a lot of work to diversify. “It takes an institutional commitment. It takes the commitment of at least one person to make that happen. It’s not an easy thing.”
Students who participate in the HCOP activities “still have to meet the same academic standards as any other student to get a Marquette degree. Having said that, many of the students are truly from disadvantaged backgrounds. They are a bit behind, starting off from poor foundational backgrounds, particularly in the math and science area,” Pan says, which is why intervention begins well before college. “It’s very difficult to go into an urban public school system and find students who are capable of graduating with a doctoral degree.”
It’s gratifying, though, that efforts at recruiting and retaining a diverse mix of PTs benefit future patients as well, he says. “Creating practitioners who are culturally competent and are aware of cultural differences across different populations of people speaks to the delivery of high-quality care.” •
Anne Federwisch is a freelance writer.
But now, as an associate professor and chair of the department of physical therapy at Hampton (Va.) University, she will be welcoming a much more diverse cohort of students this fall. The incoming class of 24 at the historically black university includes 13 black students, seven white students, and four of Asian descent.
“I think it’s extremely valuable for physical therapy students to be educated in a multicultural environment,” Williams said. “I think it’s important, No. 1, because it reflects our current society that is increasingly becoming more diverse. Because [our students] have the experience of being in a program like this, they have a deeper appreciation and understanding and are more culturally sensitive to people who are not like them.”
Increasing the Numbers
Diversity among physical therapy students across the country has increased over the years, even at institutions that have not historically had high minority enrollment. The percentage of minority student members of the American Physical Therapy Association increased from 6.6% in 1995, to 15.3% in 2010.
While that suggests a favorable trend in educational diversity among all physical therapy students, it is difficult to estimate nationwide just how many minorities attend physical therapy schools, because many schools do not report that information, notes Marie Vazquez Morgan, PT, PhD, an assistant professor in physical therapy at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, and chair of APTA’s Cultural Competence Committee.
What is known, she says, is that “there’s a huge underrepresentation in all of allied health and medicine, not just physical therapy, compared to the general population.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2000 the population was almost 30% minority. The bureau projects that by 2025, that will rise to almost 40%, and, by 2050, almost 50%.
One of the goals of APTA’s Plan on Cultural Competence is to “increase the number of physical therapists and physical therapist assistants from racial/ethnic minority groups to reflect the changing demographics of U.S. society.”
To that end, the organization has set up a minority scholarship fund, diversity and cultural competence publications, a mentoring directory and other resources aimed at improving the recruitment and retention of a diverse group of physical therapists.
“[When you] become more culturally sensitive, you provide better care,” Morgan says. “That’s why it’s so important for us to increase diversity in the physical therapy profession. If we want to provide effective healthcare, we have to have compliance in our patients. We have to attempt to decrease current barriers, whether they’re language-based or cultural, because all of these things affect patient adherence.”
And by having greater diversity on staff, all PTs get exposed to multiple cultures and can develop a greater appreciation and understanding of their similarities and differences, she says.
Working at Recruitment
While Williams has not had to establish any recruitment efforts to attract a diverse student body to Hampton University, other programs have had to work at it. As director of the Health Careers Opportunity Program at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Lawrence Pan, PT, PhD, FAPTA, has taken part in efforts to recruit and retain economically disadvantaged students, 93% of whom are minorities this year.
Efforts to diversify Marquette’s student body as a whole and the physical therapy department in particular date to 1989, when they started a local mentorship program, says Pan, who also is the chair and professor in the department of physical therapy.
Then in 1992, Marquette launched the HCOP when it landed a federal grant offered through Health and Human Services under its Health Resources Services Administration.
“It’s one of the government’s efforts to try to rectify healthcare disparities by addressing workforce disparity,” explains Pan, who writes the grants, secures the funding and advocates for the HCOP programs. “My specific interest is obviously in physical therapy, but included in the HCOP programming here at Marquette is the school of dentistry, the physician assistant studies program, speech pathology and audiology, clinical lab science, and our biomedical sciences program.”
Through field trips and career talks, the HCOP activities engage economically and educationally disadvantaged students (many of whom are minorities) as early as middle school to begin preparing them academically for a career in health professions. Marquette also administers a complementary program sponsored by the HHS through its Office of Minority Health called Youth Empowered to Succeed, which targets Hispanic students at a Milwaukee middle school. Included in that programming is career exploration in health sciences, academic enrichment (especially math and science) and mentorship.
By starting early, the recruitment efforts help develop the youngsters’ dreams and desires to go into healthcare majors such as physical therapy while providing time and training in acquiring much-needed math and science skills.
Marquette’s efforts continue to keep prospective students in the healthcare “pipeline,” Pan says, by offering a Summer Science Enrichment Program for high school sophomores, juniors and seniors. “The summer program helps to cement that interest in health professions, but also works on their science skills, their study skills, professionalism issues, cultural competence,” Pan says. “The summer programs that we offer are oftentimes life-changing for these students because they really see what the commitment is to education. Many of them are first-generation college students.”
Marquette also has two levels of college programs, the College Science Enrichment Program for undergrads, and the Pre-enrollment Support Program for students who have been accepted into different healthcare professional programs. “Once they are in the professions here at Marquette, we have tutors that are available. We have advising for the students, all to support the retention effort,” he says.
Pan estimates that now “probably between 20% and 25% of our students would qualify as disadvantaged. Back when we started, we were focused on minority students. That was the vernacular at that point. We basically had almost zero minority students in the program at that point.”
The payoffs extend beyond the students themselves, Pan notes. “It makes a much richer classroom experience for the others students and for the faculty,” he says. But it takes a lot of work to diversify. “It takes an institutional commitment. It takes the commitment of at least one person to make that happen. It’s not an easy thing.”
Students who participate in the HCOP activities “still have to meet the same academic standards as any other student to get a Marquette degree. Having said that, many of the students are truly from disadvantaged backgrounds. They are a bit behind, starting off from poor foundational backgrounds, particularly in the math and science area,” Pan says, which is why intervention begins well before college. “It’s very difficult to go into an urban public school system and find students who are capable of graduating with a doctoral degree.”
It’s gratifying, though, that efforts at recruiting and retaining a diverse mix of PTs benefit future patients as well, he says. “Creating practitioners who are culturally competent and are aware of cultural differences across different populations of people speaks to the delivery of high-quality care.” •
Anne Federwisch is a freelance writer.
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Monday August 16, 2010