Each year, because of the highly competitive admissions process, nearly 15,000 qualified applicants in the U.S. do not gain acceptance into a physical therapy program. Lynchburg College's new Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program will do its part by providing 40 spaces in its inaugural DPT class scheduled for the fall of 2010.
Kevin Brueilly, P.T., Ph.D., founding director of the DPT program, said he is fulfilling his dream of building a program from the ground up. "Lynchburg College is definitely the right place for me to do that," he said. "The support here from the College and the community has been phenomenal."
Dr. Brueilly is also excited about the opportunity to design a new facility, which will house the program under one roof. LC has entered into an agreement with Capps Shoe Co. for 37,000 square feet in a building virtually across the street from campus.
Dr. Brueilly came to LC from the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans where he served as assistant professor in their DPT program. When LC's construction is complete, he said the space will rival and even surpass most major university DPT facilities.
With an aging population and an ongoing shortage of physical therapists predicted across the country, LC announced plans in December 2008 to launch a DPT program in partnership with Centra. The decision to offer the new three-year doctoral program came after an extensive feasibility study involving Lynchburg College, Centra, Rehab Associates of Central Virginia, Orthopaedic Center of Central Virginia, and Garman & Proffitt Physical Therapy.
Nationally, there are only 210 accredited programs training physical therapists, and LC expects its new program to be fully accredited by the first graduating class in 2013. In Virginia, only Hampton, Marymount, Old Dominion, Shenandoah, and Virginia Commonwealth universities offer DPT programs.
Since his arrival in July, Dr. Brueilly has created the program curriculum and an application for interested students. He has met with prospective students to answer questions about the program and is hard at work on accreditation documents. He has also secured the first two program faculty members, Dr. George Schuppin, LC associate professor of biology, and Lee Ann Eagler, PT, DPT, ACCE, who comes to LC from the Bedford, Va., area where she has worked as a clinical physical therapist for several years.
Applicants for the DPT program must have a bachelor's degree and complete prerequisite courses. Nationally, a typical applicant that gains admission into physical therapy has a 3.4 grade point average. Among the undergraduate courses that are useful when applying are anatomy, biology, chemistry, social science, mathematics, and physics. Before granting admission, many programs require students to volunteer with a licensed physical therapist.