I heard this concept recently. There's evidently talk about transitioning the associate PTA degree to a BS degree. Besides obviously decreasing the educational disparities between PTAs and PTs, what would be the rationale behind doing this? Does the APTA make these decisions? Do you find it likely that this transition would happen? What type of effect do you think it would have on physical therapy?
PTAs graduating with a BS instead of AS
- Thread starter lee9786
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That I'm not sure about...
We have a PTA at our outpatient clinic that is relatively young (as opposed to a lot of the PTAs I've worked with in the past who are 35 yrs old+)...I think she's probably 26 or 27. She has her Bachelors in exercise science, and then went back and got her PTA associates degree (not sure why she didn't go through the whole PT thing...probably didn't want to spend the extra time and money for a DPT when she could finish it in a yr in community college). I don't know if she has any pay advantage over non-BA/BS PTAs, but as a patient I would feel slightly more comfortable working with a PTA with more education/higher degrees than those with just a 2-year degree...especially because in a lot of clinics PTAs are totally on their own (yes, a PT will co-sign the progress and SOAP notes, but a lot of time they develop the plan of care, do all the hands-on work, etc.). If I didn't get into PT school I thought about doing the PTA thing, except that I've heard that the degree is going away and with new insurance policies less and less will want PTAs involved. Maybe that's why the degree may be moving to Bachelors?
We have a PTA at our outpatient clinic that is relatively young (as opposed to a lot of the PTAs I've worked with in the past who are 35 yrs old+)...I think she's probably 26 or 27. She has her Bachelors in exercise science, and then went back and got her PTA associates degree (not sure why she didn't go through the whole PT thing...probably didn't want to spend the extra time and money for a DPT when she could finish it in a yr in community college). I don't know if she has any pay advantage over non-BA/BS PTAs, but as a patient I would feel slightly more comfortable working with a PTA with more education/higher degrees than those with just a 2-year degree...especially because in a lot of clinics PTAs are totally on their own (yes, a PT will co-sign the progress and SOAP notes, but a lot of time they develop the plan of care, do all the hands-on work, etc.). If I didn't get into PT school I thought about doing the PTA thing, except that I've heard that the degree is going away and with new insurance policies less and less will want PTAs involved. Maybe that's why the degree may be moving to Bachelors?
