It sucks that you have to have a doctoral degree to become a physical therapist.

oh yours isn't just any expert, he's the authority of all authorities. we must all suspend our own independent judgment and accept what authority tells us. give me the credentials of some authority figure over facts, logic and reason anyday. why? because i'm a liberal idiot and i don't want to think. i want "society" to think for me. prestigious credentials are Society's way of guaranteeing that someone is a valid authority. When in doubt, remember tye following rule of thumb: "WHO says something is far more important than WHAT he says." authority.

Certain regulations on scope of practice are unnecessarily driving up the cost of everything and making it hard for people to get the care they need. If direct access to a physical therapist or other allied health professional can get a person healthy again for less money, then why not? Someone genuinely concerned about their patient's well-being should care about how much money healthcare costs as well.

Sports wrote:

Certain regulations on scope of practice are unnecessarily driving up the cost of everything and making it hard for people to get the care they need. If direct access to a physical therapist or other allied health professional can get a person healthy again for less money, then why not? Someone genuinely concerned about their patient's well-being should care about how much money healthcare costs as well.

Oh yeah...those darn scope of practice and licensing laws. What a racket those docs have going!

We ought to just open up the whole market and allow anyone who wants to practice medicine give it a shot. All the elitist medical school graduates too expensive for your appendectomy? Try Frank! He only took community college anatomy classes and an online surgery course, but he'll undercut any rate in town!

Oh by the way: here's a handy tip for the guy arguing against education. The word "someone" is singular and the word "their" is plural. They don't agree.

Sorry, were you referring to my posts? I'm not arguing against education but arguing against inefficient schooling. If we replaced a bunch of college pre courses with the exact same courses taken in medical school (but watered down, obviously), I would be fine with that.

Also, I couldn't fine the mistake in concordance between subject and verb in my posts but I make more mistakes when typing quickly.

But since your post is kind of rude, I will respond by saying that I'm fairly well-read and make very few grammatical errors in English. (as well as few in other languages...)

Um...I was responding to the person I quoted in my post, dumba$s. Look at it again. It very clearly says "sports wrote" in a box with his quote and then has my reply below it.

Unless you are posting under different usernames trying to stir $hit up and forgot to change your username...

Whoa, relax. I mess up and you say "dumba$s"? It was rude to say that to the other guy in the first place.

A racket is exactly what it is. Physical therapists are perfectly capable of handling themselves with direct access. It's happening right now in most states.

I'm arguing for the well-being of people trying to get affordable healthcare, not necessarily "against education." If somebody who costs $40 an hour can do the same job as somebody who costs $100 dollars an hour, who should do the job?

And your unnecessary pointing out of my grammatical errors only goes to further show that you are an arrogant person.

Sports wrote:

A racket is exactly what it is. Physical therapists are perfectly capable of handling themselves with direct access. It's happening right now in most states.

I'm arguing for the well-being of people trying to get affordable healthcare, not necessarily "against education." If somebody who costs $40 an hour can do the same job as somebody who costs $100 dollars an hour, who should do the job?

And your unnecessary pointing out of my grammatical errors only goes to further show that you are an arrogant person.

Are you going to take the liability when that low back pain turns out to be a sarcoma?

Sports wrote:

A racket is exactly what it is. Physical therapists are perfectly capable of handling themselves with direct access. It's happening right now in most states.

I'm arguing for the well-being of people trying to get affordable healthcare, not necessarily "against education." If somebody who costs $40 an hour can do the same job as somebody who costs $100 dollars an hour, who should do the job?

And your unnecessary pointing out of my grammatical errors only goes to further show that you are an arrogant person.

First off, you do know that physician compensation is roughly 7.5-10% of all health care costs? It is a tiny drop in the bucket; if you hypothetically reduced physician pay by 50%, the health care savings would be a tiny amount (4-5%). I don't know many that would be willing to work for 60 bucks an hour and study for so many years while accruing negative net worth and with a heavy opportunity cost.

Personally, I would rather go to somebody with a much higher college GPA that did well on the MCAT, studied 4 years of medical school, and completed a four year residency in PM+R. Instead of somebody that took the GRE, had worse grades, and completed 3 years of post-college education. (Physical Therapy)

But you get what you pay for.

That said, the loperamide guy sounds kind of arrogant but it is an internet forum. For all we know he could be a humble, great guy!

Therapists are trained to differentiate pain that they can or can't treat, and recognize when imaging is indicated. The patient can always be sent to the doctor if necessary. For most patients with lbp it saves them money to start at the therapists office.

loperamide wrote:

Basically what you're saying is that people who are "actually interested" in medicine would forgo intensive and in-depth medical training for a more superficial program. Come again? LOL.

I would argue that the MD program itself (not the residency, where the real training occurs) is the superficial program compared to DPT.

The vast amount of information covered in medical school does not allow for in-depth understanding of the musculoskeletal system, which is the area in which most PTs specialize.

Most orthopedic surgeons I know and from whom I receive referrals understand that, and if there is a non-surgical case, they send the patient to me (or others in my practice).

MDs and PTs are not competitors; in fact I would argue they work better together, each understanding not only the importance of the other, but also the self-awareness to know their own limitations.

To the OP: more schooling makes for a better entry-level practitioner. It is not a substitute for experience, but if new graduates are better prepared for patient care using evidence based practice, it is a good thing.

There are plenty of people with 4.0s choosing PT school over med school these days. Think about all the people who don't want to see blood, deliver babies, council people on end of life decisions and all that other emotionally difficult stuff that doctors do. To me that's why they are revered so much, not solely for their intelligence. And the GRE is way harder than you give it credit for.

If you want to pay an extra hundred dollars so that the doctor can send you to physical therapy, that's fine. Nobody is telling you that you have to see a PT instead.

When you talk about cutting five percent off of a figure as astronomical as "the total cost of healthcare in this country" you are talking about saving a significant chunk of change.

Sports wrote:

There are plenty of people with 4.0s choosing PT school over med school these days. Think about all the people who don't want to see blood, deliver babies, council people on end of life decisions and all that other emotionally difficult stuff that doctors do. To me that's why they are revered so much, not solely for their intelligence. And the GRE is way harder than you give it credit for.

If you want to pay an extra hundred dollars so that the doctor can send you to physical therapy, that's fine. Nobody is telling you that you have to see a PT instead.

When you talk about cutting five percent off of a figure as astronomical as "the total cost of healthcare in this country" you are talking about saving a significant chunk of change.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....come on. I actually agree with the latter part of what you said, but to imply that the caliber of students going to medical school vs. physical therapy school is anywhere near comparable is absolutely ludicrous.

I know people who got into both med and pt school and chose pt. I would guess that the average PT student has a 3.5 GPA and medical students maybe 3.7. That's not much of a difference, especially since they often have the same undergrad majors.

http://www.mcattestscores.com/usmedicalschoolsmcatscoresGPA.html

http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/pt/prospective/elp/student_profiles.html

Those links can be used to compare columbia med and columbia PT school. And in PT state schools are vastly more competitive than even Columbia.

Sports wrote:

There are plenty of people with 4.0s choosing PT school over med school these days. Think about all the people who don't want to see blood, deliver babies, council people on end of life decisions and all that other emotionally difficult stuff that doctors do. To me that's why they are revered so much, not solely for their intelligence. And the GRE is way harder than you give it credit for.

If you want to pay an extra hundred dollars so that the doctor can send you to physical therapy, that's fine. Nobody is telling you that you have to see a PT instead.

When you talk about cutting five percent off of a figure as astronomical as "the total cost of healthcare in this country" you are talking about saving a significant chunk of change.

The average medical school applicant has much stronger credentials than the average PT applicant. You may get a rare 4.0 guy that got a 38 on his MCAT but decided that he didn't want to become a doctor, but it is fairly rare. Most people go for the Gold and only settle for less when they can't or for some other uncommon reason.

The GRE is easy as heck. It is an SAT with a tiny bit more.

MCAT>DAT>PCAT>LSAT>GMAT>GRE.

Sports wrote:

I know people who got into both med and pt school and chose pt. I would guess that the average PT student has a 3.5 GPA and medical students maybe 3.7. That's not much of a difference, especially since they often have the same undergrad majors.

http://www.mcattestscores.com/usmedicalschoolsmcatscoresGPA.htmlhttp://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/pt/prospective/elp/student_profiles.html

Those links can be used to compare columbia med and columbia PT school. And in PT state schools are vastly more competitive than even Columbia.

Keep telling yourself its the same. I couldn't find the PT aggregate matriculant data but you just cherry picked like the top PT program, probably.

They're two different professions. One is not gold and the other is not silver.

It's definitely harder to get into med school, but not as different as people here are suggesting.

Cell phone etiquette wrote:

Sports wrote:

I know people who got into both med and pt school and chose pt. I would guess that the average PT student has a 3.5 GPA and medical students maybe 3.7. That's not much of a difference, especially since they often have the same undergrad majors.

http://www.mcattestscores.com/usmedicalschoolsmcatscoresGPA.htmlhttp://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/pt/prospective/elp/student_profiles.html

Those links can be used to compare columbia med and columbia PT school. And in PT state schools are vastly more competitive than even Columbia.

Keep telling yourself its the same. I couldn't find the PT aggregate matriculant data but you just cherry picked like the top PT program, probably.

https://www.aamc.org/download/161690/data/table17.pdf

Yeah...he was trying to compare the average GPA across all medical schools to than of an Ivy. I'd try to pull up a bunch of data, but to be honest this guy has already shown himself to be pretty self-deluded and it is clear that he is going to twist anything we say to preserve his fragile little ego.