Orthopaedic and Manual Physical Therapy (OMPT) Fellowship
Our programs are committed to developing stewards of the physical therapy profession, evidence-based practitioners and clinician scientists. Graduates will be critical thinkers, reflective, empathetic, and lifelong learners.
Orthopaedic and Manual Physical Therapy (OMPT) Fellowship
Bellin College’s OMPT Fellowship is an evolution of the highly regarded Evidence in Motion™ (EIM) OMPT Fellowship which has been a hallmark of the physical therapy profession in elevating clinical leadership. The AAOMPT-recognized Fellowship in Orthopaedic Manual Physical Therapy helps therapists gain the highest-level skills in the integration of advanced manual physical therapy techniques, educating students and fellow PT’s, performing clinic-based research, and leading in the business of PT.
The Bellin College OMPT Fellowship program is a 40 credit, flexible, cost-effective, and achievable program from a work/life balance perspective. This program can be paced to accommodate personal life and spread over 18 months to 4 years. Data demonstrates that past-EIM Fellows perform in the top 10% of the profession (based on Focus on Therapeutic Outcomes™ scores). Graduates are primed for leadership in the teaching of orthopaedic manual physical therapy, as well as active participation and contribution to clinical research.
The Fellowship is accomplished through a dynamic fusion of didactic, collaborative, and clinical education experiences using a combination of distance learning, online courses, weekend intensive hands-on courses, and clinical practice hours.
The value of the Fellowship
View the article authored by past and current Bellin College program directors and faculty regarding the value of participation in the Fellowship.
The OMPT Fellowship program is flexible, achievable from a work/life balance perspective, and cost-effective. Students may have already completed significant coursework towards Fellowship. This feasible program can be paced to accommodate personal life and spread over 2 to 3 years. DSC 612: INTRODUCTION TO OMPT AND PROFESSIONAL SOCIALIZATION – 1 credit DSC 614 Evidence-Based Physical therapy Practice – 1 credit DSC 615 PRECISION-BASED EXERCISE PRESCRIPTION – 1 credit DSC 621: PAIN SCIENCES & PSYCHOSOCIAL IMPLICATIONS IN MUSCULOSKELETAL CARE – 2 credits DSC 630: Lifestyle Medicine & Behavior Change in Musculoskeletal Care – 1 credit DSC 631 PATIENT MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK 1 – 1 credit DSC 652 TA: TEACHING PRACTICUM 1 – MANAGEMENT OF LUMBOPELVIC DISORDERS – 1 credit DSC 654 TA: TEACHING PRACTICUM 2 – MANAGEMENT OF LOWER EXTREMITY DISORDERS – 1 credit DSC 631 PATIENT MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK 1 – 1 credit This course will define person-centered clinical reasoning grounded in the signs and symptoms approach used in orthopaedic manual physical therapy practice. The learner will explore concepts surrounding person-centered care, shared-decision making, hypo-deductive reasoning, severity, irritability, nature, stage, and stability and how these factors play a role in one’s clinical reasoning. Evidence-informed behaviors and reasoning skills surrounding the interview process and physical examination will also be a center-point of this course which will guide the learner in establishing a person’s prognosis and/or theragnosis. The goal of this course is to lay foundational person-centered clinical reasoning knowledge that prepares the learner for future clinical reasoning refinement and clinical application. DSC 666 Management of Upper Extremity WITH LAB – 3 credits DSC 680 Leadership in Higher Education – 2 credits DSC 691 Independent Study I – 1 credit DSC 701 Advanced Manual Therapy Technique – 1 credit Lab hours may be accumulated throughout their enrollment as a fellow in training. Several college-sponsored weekend intensives will be offered, which students may attend at no additional tuition cost. Students may also choose to gain lab hours through outside opportunities with prior approval from the program director. DSC 729 Fellowship Scholarly Project – 1 credit DSC 732 PATIENT MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK 2 – 4 credits DSC 733 PATIENT MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK 3 – 5 credits DSC 734 PATIENT MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK 4 – 5 credits DSC 751 Biostatistics 1 – 3 credits DSC 752 Biostatistics 2 – 3 credits DSC 765 Fellowship Mentored Clinical Practice – 2 credits) DSC 791 Independent Study II – 1 credit DSC 799 Fellowship Program Capstone Examinations – Capstone credit DSC 800 Curriculum Development – 3 credits DSC 810 Science and Design of Educational Assessment – 3 credits DSC 900 RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES AND DOCTORAL PROJECT – 1 credit DSC 901 Research Methodologies and Doctoral Project I – 2 credits DSC 902 Research and Methodologies and Doctoral Project II – 2 credits DSC 903 Research Methodologies and Doctoral Project III – 2 credits DSC 904 Research Methodologies and Doctoral Project IV – 2 credits DSC 905 RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES and Doctoral Project V – 2 credits EDUCATIONAL COMPREHENSIVE CAPSTONE – 1 credit OMPT Fellowship Program Goals & Outcomes OMPT Fellowship Participant/Graduate Goals & Outcomes OMPT Fellowship Faculty Goals & Outcomes Graduation Requirements Tuition charges listed are for planning purposes only and are subject to change. Tuition and Fees Schedules are updated and published annually. Fellowship courses are delivered through a combination of online learning, as well as personal interactions within clinical and classroom/lab environment. Delivery of the online learning content may occur through a blend of face-to-face activities, or asynchronous means. Onsite weekend intensives are required for all management and technique courses. Students will have the option of attending weekend intensives at sites throughout the United States. Courses are taught by world-class faculty, many of whom are internationally recognized for their contributions to education, research, and practice management. Bellin College cannot accept/transfer credits toward completion of the OMPT Fellowship unless completed through Evidence in Motion ™. If you have already completed a Fellowship through another credentialed program, you may be eligible for transfer credit toward our Doctor of Science (DSc) degree. See the Doctor of Science in Physical Therapy section below for further information . Students who are only completing the OMPT Fellowship are not eligible for federal financial loans, but may be eligible for private educational loans. Students who commit to the entire DSc in PT program, which includes the fellowship, may be eligible for federal loans. Yes, contact Bellin College’s school certifying official, Mary Jo Moore at (920) 433-6640, maryjo.moore@bellincollege.edu or view the Bellin College veteran’s information page. Yes, a $500 tuition deposit is due with return of the student acceptance contract and is credited toward tuition. Individual payment plans may be developed in conjunction with the Bellin College Bursar. For more information contact Mary Jo Moore, Bursar, maryjo.moore@bellincollege.edu or (920) 433-6640. The Bellin College Fellowship typically takes 24-36 months to complete, although fellows in training have 4 years (48 months) of enrollment to complete the program. Exceptions to the time frame may be made by the Program Director on a case-by-case basis, with a firm limit of 60 months. Depending on the specific course, the fellow in training (FiT) should plan on spending on average 12-20 hours per week devoted to their studies. This varies based on prior education preparation, which courses the FiT is enrolled in, and academic efficiency of each FiT. FiT’s are required to attend the four core management class weekend intensives (WI’s) as a student, with sites available across the United States. FiT’s may attend additional WI’s as desired at no additional cost. There are also two required FiT-only weekend intensive courses to attend. The Bellin College Fellowship is accredited by the Accreditation Council on Orthopaedic and Manual Physical Therapy Fellowship Education (a division of the American Academy of Orthopaedic and Manual Physical Therapists) as a post-professional fellowship program for physical therapists. Please contact admissions@bellincollege.edu or (920) 433-6650. Go to the mentorship resources pageCurriculum Calendar Examples
Students with prior EIM credits
Students with no prior EIM credits
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
This course provides an introduction into what it means to be a manual physical therapy fellow. A variety of professional topics are discussed including the history of manual therapy, professional organization(s), and current and emerging issues.
This course is designed to improve the participant’s understanding and use of evidence-based practice and its impact on person-centered clinical reasoning. Participants learn how to effectively and efficiently the quality of peer-reviewed articles and accurately interpret specific findings. Learners will apply research appraisal skills that will form the foundation for future fellowship course work to build upon. The goal of this course is to develop consumers and users of clinical research that will improve the quality and impact of the participant’s clinical practice on the people they serve.
This course reinforces the importance of evidence-informed, person-centered exercise prescription. The learner will investigate specific dosage parameters related to strength, endurance, motor control, power, and agility exercises and how to adapt these parameters to reach a person’s functional goals. The goal of this course is to distinguish basic dosage prescription strategies within a person-centered reasoning approach.
This course provides an in-depth review of the current concepts in pain sciences. The course challenges presuppositions and provides evidence-based insight into the current myths and gross misunderstandings of pain.
This course will explore the physical therapist’s role in optimal health promotion and wellbeing through select lifestyle medicine topics. Learners will investigate the impact that sleep and nutrition have on pain, health, and disability. Learners will review strategies to empower people to adopt behaviors that support a healthy lifestyle and address pain. The goal of this course is to empower the fellow-in-training to take an active role in inspiring healthy behaviors within in a person-centered approach to meet the needs of society.
This course will define person-centered clinical reasoning grounded in the signs and symptoms approach used in orthopaedic manual physical therapy practice. The learner will explore concepts surrounding person-centered care, shared-decision making, hypo-deductive reasoning, severity, irritability, nature, stage, and stability and how these factors play a role in one’s clinical reasoning. Evidence-informed behaviors and reasoning skills surrounding the interview process and physical examination will also be a center-point of this course which will guide the learner in establishing a person’s prognosis and/or theragnosis. The goal of this course is to lay foundational person-centered clinical reasoning knowledge that prepares the learner for future clinical reasoning refinement and clinical application.
In this course students function as teaching assistants for students enrolled in DSc 650 Management of Lumbopelvic Disorders. Under faculty oversight, students participate in course oversight, instruction, student evaluation and mentorship.
In this course, students function as teaching assistants for students enrolled in DSc 651 Management of Lower Extremity Disorders. Under faculty guidance, students participate in course oversight, instruction, student evaluation and mentorship.
This course integrates manipulative intervention techniques in the management of individuals with upper extremity disorders and dysfunction. Classification systems and outcomes assessment tools, within the framework of evidence-based practice, are included. Diagnostic information for the medical screening of systemic and vascular disorders is discussed. An intensive laboratory weekend is included.
This course provides graduates with the skills necessary to be a visionary leader by improving the performance of educational programs to drive continuous improvement, collaborative decision making, and strategic planning. Students will address contemporary and future educational issues relevant to the field of physical therapy.
This course includes the preparation of two up-to-date, well-researched, evidence-focused presentations on pre-approved topics. These presentations must be: 1) recorded for posting in an open access forum, 2) presented live at weekend intensive or other approved post-professional continuing education course, 3) presented to a multi-disciplinary audience, 4) presented to a direct consumer audience, or 5) presented to another pre-approved audience.
The student will complete 160 hours of supervised lab hours focused on advanced examination/interventions, including mechanical diagnosis and therapy concepts, adverse neural dynamics, mobilization/manipulation techniques, and therapeutic exercise. Lab hours should include discussion on optimizing patient history, key differentiation testing in the physical exam, and strategies to select optimal intervention procedures.
This course requires the student to complete a patient case report or case series, as well as a poster presentation and oral presentation of the case.
This course will expand on the person-centered and signs and symptoms reasoning approach used in orthopaedic manual physical therapy practice through the integration of evidence-informed communication strategies and hypodeductive reasoning. The learner will work to become competent in a systematic person-centered interview process that aims to develop a strong therapeutic alliance and empower the person seeking care. There will be a focus on refining appropriate communication skills related to the subjective examination of a person through the critical review of case presentations and peer critical review. The goal of this course is to develop explicit communication behaviors and skills required to perform an efficient and well-organized interview that allows the learner to construct appropriate person-centered hypotheses, physical examination plans, and intervention strategies.
This course will build off the foundational content and practice in person management framework 2. The learner will refine their skills and behaviors surrounding communication and interviewing in order to guide and perform an evidence-informed physical examination. Learners will develop their reasoning skills in order to synthesize data from both the interview and physical exam in order to form an accurate person-centered hypothesis. There will be a focus on refining appropriate psychomotor skills related to the physical examination of the spine and extremities through the critical review of case presentations and peer critical review. The goal of this course is to become proficient in the performance of a hypo-deductive reasoning approach to the physical examination that is founded in precise psychomotor performance that guides an evidence-informed intervention plan.
This course will build off the foundational content and practice in person management framework 3. The learner will refine their reasoning skills so that they reach proficiency or mastery in specific elements of person-centered care. There will be a focus on optimal communication strategies for addressing complicating or significant influencing factors and progression of the plan of care. The learner will continue to refine their psychomotor skills related to the physical exam and evidence-informed intervention strategies. Refinement of reasoning skills through critical review of case presentations and peer feedback will be a hallmark of this course. The goal of this course is to prepare the learner for successful implementation of the person-centered model in order to pass the capstone practical examinations.
This course will provide a foundation for understanding biostatistics and basic proficiency with running basic biostatistical models. The course will cover such topics as simple descriptive statistics, basic probability concepts, probability distributions, sampling distributions, t-tests, and confidence intervals.
The purpose of this course is to build upon the topics of Biostatistics 1. This course will cover such topics as correlation, analysis of covariance, post-hoc testing, factorial designs, simple linear regression, and reliability analyses. Students will present doctoral research questions, hypotheses, methods, and data analysis plans for critique and discussion. Pre-requisite: DSC 751
This Clinical Practicum is an advanced clinical practice experience in orthopaedic manual physical therapy in which students are mentored in both live 1:1 clinical practice hours and orthopaedic manual physical therapy clinical practice hours based on current American Physical Therapy Association requirements. Emphasis is placed on advanced clinical decision-making, outcomes evaluation and autonomous patient management.
This independent study course includes the completion of self-paced coursework focused on the foundations of manual physical therapy practice and the standardized manual physical therapy examination. Enrollment in this course starts upon entering the fellowship program and is completed once the student has successfully completed all learning modules included in this course.
This capstone course consists of the final examination process. Students complete a final comprehensive written examination that focuses on medical screening, clinical reasoning, decision-making, and the application of manual physical therapy concepts. Students complete 4 regional technique examinations to demonstrate mastery of selected manual physical therapy interventions. Finally, 2 live patient examinations are completed, one with a spinal/axial focus and another with a peripheral/appendicular focus.
A deep understanding of the development and implementation of curriculum will be explored by examining the philosophical and theoretical perspectives of the science of teaching and learning. This is the 2nd course in a 2-part series that will utilize an in-depth analysis of curricular design models and application congruent with identified curricular objectives, goals, and learner outcomes. Development of curriculum will systematically address technology integration, evidenced-based practices, and innovative and collaborative learning experiences.
Through the study of the basic principles of curriculum development and assessment this course is designed to provide the learner with knowledge, skills, and experiences to be actively involved in multiple facets of the curricular process. This is the first course in a 2-part series that will focus on developing the knowledge and skills to identify, develop, and design assessment instruments and strategies for effective evaluation of student learning through both formative and summative assessment methodologies. Pre-requisite: DSC 800
This course will assist students in facilitating completion of their systematic or scoping review. Students will be required to complete all screening of included studies in their systematic or scoping review and complete 50% of their data extraction by the end of the course.
This course will provide a foundation for the principles of evidence based-practice and research design so that the student may immediately integrate scientific knowledge with practice and complete a clinically relevant research proposal. This course is the first phase of the doctoral project and is designed to prepare doctoral students to develop a research project. Prerequisites: None
This course will familiarize students with the steps required to successfully complete a systematic or scoping review, which are considered gold standards for appraising and evaluating the scientific literature. Students will also continue to work on their group research project. Prerequisites: DSC 901 Research Methodologies and Doctoral Project III
This course will require students to submit a draft manuscript of a systematic or scoping review. Students will also continue to participate in ongoing work on their group research project. This is a hybrid course including 15 weeks of online coursework and optional bi-weekly virtual meetings. Prerequisites: Completion of DSC 901 Research Methodologies and Doctoral Project I and DSC 902 Research Methodologies and Doctoral Project II, passing score on the comprehensive examination.
The goal of this course is to focus on the completion of the systematic or scoping review and continue with the group research project. This will be largely project-dependent, but will include data preparation and cleaning, data analysis, and creation of a manuscript draft. This is a hybrid course including 16 weeks of online coursework and bi-weekly virtual meetings. Prerequisites: Completion of DSC 901 Research Methodologies and Doctoral Project I, DSC 902 Research Methodologies and Doctoral Project II, and DSC 903 Research Methodologies and Doctoral Project III.
The goal of this course is to finalize the research project, and independently defend a presentation of their research before a scientific panel. Both the scoping/systematic review and research project manuscripts must be under peer review or accepted by the end of this course. This is a hybrid course including 16 weeks of online coursework. Prerequisites: Completion of DSC 901 Research Methodologies and Doctoral Project I, DSC 902 Research Methodologies and Doctoral Project II, DSC 903 Research Methodologies and Doctoral Project III and DSC 904 Research Methodologies and Doctoral Project IV
This course provides a comprehensive learning assessment by integrating the learning experiences of DSc 680, DSc 800, and DSc 810. Students will complete a final teaching project with oral defense.
Mark Shepherd,
PT, DPT, OCS, FAAOMPT
Program DirectorJonathon Weiss,
PT, DPT, GCS
Program CoordinatorAre transfer credits accepted?
Is financial aid available?
Am I able to utilize my Federal Veteran’s Administration (VA) Benefits?
Is there a tuition deposit?
What sort of payment plans are available?
How long will it take me to complete?
How many hours per weeks should I set aside?
How much travel is required?
Is the Fellowship accredited?
Additional questions?
Questions?
Please contact Bellin College Admissions at Admissions@bellincollege.edu,
(920) 433-6650, or use our online contact form.
