Why Occupational Therapy?
Occupational Therapists help patients improve their daily lives, to help patients recover from accidents and illnesses, and work collaboratively in teams with other health professionals to help patients meet their goals. Occupational Therapists work in a wide range of settings including:
- Acute care hospitals
- Rehabilitation hospitals
- Long term care and skilled nursing facilities
- Schools and other educational settings
Curriculum
The program consists of nine semesters of full-time, on-site, and hybrid graduate coursework taken in the fall, spring, and summer terms. Students will obtain approximately 1080 hours of supervised clinical practice during the program. The curriculum covers topics to include:
- Physical and Mental Health Conditions Across the Life Span
- Human Occupation and Activity Analysis
- Needs Assessment and Program Development
- Applied Human Anatomy and Neuroscience
Eligibility
Students must have completed an undergraduate degree from an accredited institution with a 3.0 GPA. Students should have completed the following prerequisites as an undergraduate: one year of anatomy and physiology with lab, one year of English, a semester of physics with lab, one semester of statistics, one semester of abnormal psychology, one semester of sociology, one semester of developmental or lifespan psychology.
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Accreditation Status
The entry-level occupational therapy doctoral degree program has applied for accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), located at 6116 Executive Boulevard, Suite 200, North Bethesda, MD 20852-4929. ACOTE's telephone number c/o AOTA is (301) 652-AOTA and its Web address is www.acoteonline.org.
The program must be granted Candidacy Status, have a preaccreditation review, complete an on-site evaluation, and be granted Accreditation Status before its graduates will be eligible to sit for the national certification examination for the occupational therapist administered by the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy (NBCOT). After successful completion of this exam, the individual will be an Occupational Therapist, Registered (OTR). In addition, all states require licensure in order to practice; however, state licenses are usually based on the results of the NBCOT Certification Examination. Note that a felony conviction may affect a graduate’s ability to sit for the NBCOT certification examination or attain state licensure.
Students must complete Level II fieldwork and experiential requirements within 24 months following completion of the didactic portion of the program.
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