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CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) – As the demand for occupational and physical therapy increasingly exceeds the number of available therapists in South Carolina, the Medical University of South Carolina is making a substantiative program change in hopes of offering a solution to this issue.
Data from MUSC shows that, of South Carolina’s 46 counties, 16 have less than 10 practicing physical therapists.
MUSC Department Chair for Rehabilitation Sciences at the College of Health Professions Dr. Megan Donaldson says that there are several reasons that the demand outweighs the number of therapists available and that many factors have impacted health care. She says the pandemic’s repercussions affected many fields as it caused people to leave their professions.
She also says the population of baby boomers is growing and that is causing an increase in need and care. Donaldson says there has been an increase in the need for prevention and that there is also a growing need for mental health care, which is something occupational therapists can provide.
Between the growing need for prevention, the growing need for mental health care and an aging population, the demand for occupational and physical therapy is high.
Since Donaldson was brought on to the MUSC creative team more than a year ago, she has worked with the hospital on innovative ways to create a larger and more diverse workforce when it comes to physical and occupational therapy.
Through this, they have developed hybrid options for their Doctor of Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy doctorate programs. Donaldson is the program director for these hybrid programs and believes they have the power to make a big difference.
MUSC’s Occupational Therapy doctorate and Doctor of Physical Therapy programs are nationally ranked. Expanding these impressive programs with hybrid options will not only present a solution to this shortage of doctors but will allow students across the nation to have the opportunity to receive this education from the university.
These new hybrid programs will also be less expensive for students, as they can be completed a semester early. Students will also save on housing costs since they can participate from anywhere that has internet. The program is an eight-semester program compared to the normal nine semesters which reduces the total cost of the program by about $15,000 to $20,000.
A major goal of these new programs is to also increase access for students in rural communities. Donaldson says it is important to provide this access to students who would normally be unable to attend such as nontraditional students who are switching careers or have families. Donaldson says she hopes that these new programs not only increase the number of therapists available to serve patients in the community but that this will help grow a workforce that is more diverse and representative of the populations that the graduates will be serving.
“Allowing individuals who can live in rural communities or maybe away from college towns where they don’t have easy access – this opens up all types of geographical convenience,” she says. “So, they get an MUSC education and then they could go back and live where they were they routinely have invested in their home life and their communities.”
Donaldson says this is vital, as the need for both physical and occupational therapists is growing across the community. One thing she is making a top priority is ensuring hybrid students are getting the same education as residential students.
“Whether it’s residential or hybrid, those students are going to get that same experience: the MUSC experience. And so, I care very much that our teams feel very whole and it’s not a ‘one against another,’ that these students are our product that we get to deliver and it’s not two different formats. It shouldn’t feel that way. So, we’ve been really working hard not just through the curriculum but being mindful about how we make students feel like they belong, and how our faculty are collectively working together,” Donaldson says.
Donaldson has already seen incredible success in similar programming. She came to MUSC after she founded the Hybrid Doctor of Physical Therapy program at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts.
She says her program there is extremely well and she hopes to see the same outcome for this new one at MUSC. Her program at Tufts showed that 40% of students came from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds. Many were also first-generation college students, and some were in their 40s and 50s, showing that offering hybrid programs opens the door for an array of different types of students to participate in.
Donaldson says she hopes that this new program at MUSC has a great impact on the profession and the ever-changing and adapting field of health care.
“I want our students to be able to come out with clinical excellence, academic excellence, be able to go out and be change agents for the profession by committing to service, committing to serving the populations in which they’re living in their communities. And so, to me that means that we have the opportunity to be incredibly successful,” she says.
The MUSC hybrid physical and occupational therapy programs are set to launch officially in Aug. 2025, but enrollment for both hybrid and residential graduate programs is open now. There will be a cap of 80 students for the hybrid program and 75 for the residential. More information on enrollment and these new hybrid programs can be found here. A link to the enrollment requirements for the new hybrid program can be found here.
