DPT Student and Alumni Spotlight
What is unique about the Mount's DPT Program?
Run by our own students, the MSJ Physical Therapy (PT) clinic offers free services to improve the lives of our westside community. Our primary goal is to serve community members whose insurance benefits lack sufficient coverage or those without the financial resources to cover copayments.
- Inpatient lab with hospital beds and wall unit treatment/monitoring equipment
- State-of-the-art high-fidelity simulation laboratories and private patient rooms for standardized patient encounters to enhance off-campus clinical experience
- Equipment that reflects modern practice such as:
- Motion analysis system (Dartfish®)
- Physiology assessment system (BIOPAC®)
- Bodyweight supported treadmill training (LiteGait®)
- Interactive rehabilitation and training tools (Wii®, MR Cube®)
- Safe patient handling equipment (Arjo®)
- Biodex Gait Trainer treadmill
- KINVENT force plates
Third-year electives on advanced-practice topics such as animal rehabilitation, performing artists, running athletes, and manual therapy, as well as additional clinic opportunities (neurologic, falls and pro bono clinics).
With Access Physiotherapy over 70% of the required texts for the 3 year program are provided for free to students. Graduates will also have access for 6 months after graduation, perfect for studying for the NPTE.
The program organizes and pays for an NPTE preparation course and associated text for all third-year students in late November, early December of the final year. Additionally, codes for 2 free practice exams (PEAT) are provided to students at no additional cost.
Faculty and staff are committed to student success and readily accessible for individual student needs. Mount faculty are educators first and foremost but they also are clinicians and leaders in the community. All faculty are members of and actively participate in various roles in the American Physical Therapy Association.
Faculty are devoted to helping students develop the professional behaviors essential to being an effective practitioner and health care team member. The Mount’s mission is to prepare students to be ethical leaders who respond to dilemmas with integrity and respect for individuals and society as a whole.
The Mount maintains strong relationships with all the regional healthcare systems to enhance the program by providing the best clinical placements and instructors, having local community clinicians serve as adjuncts, allowing visits to observe patients and varying types of practice, developing service opportunities, and even to help students practice with our year 3 mock job interviews. See more information about our community ties here.
Throughout the curriculum, students are provided with course-related and extracurricular opportunities to practice their skills and serve those in the local community. We have an active student physical therapy association (SPTA) that plans social and service activities throughout the year.
Katlin Middleton, '11 D.P.T.
In 2016, Mount graduate Katlin Middleton started East of Eden Physical Therapy, an international grassroots pediatric mission. This work lead her to Nepal, where she spent two weeks serving children and elderly women.
"After we returned, we felt an urgency to somehow broaden the reach, so in February 2020, we published it as a book, titled Pediatric Exercise Handbook: A Developmental How-To for Parent and Clinicians," Katlin Middleton '11, D.P.T.
To read about alumni Katlin Middleton, '11 and her rewarding DPT experience, click here.