Credential Creep

[cookderosa]

A couple of weeks ago, I found out that dietitians will soon need a master's degree. There are now six entry-level master's programs for respiratory therapists, and this is a job that only requires an associate's degree. However, USPHS requires at least a bachelor's degree. I know that nurse practitioners will soon need a doctorate. I believe the occupational therapy field is also pushing to require a doctorate. 

Honestly, I don't think occupational therapists and physical therapists need doctoral degrees. Their work is not that complicated. They aren't performing surgery, making compex diagnoses, writing prescriptions, or treating mental illnesses. Not too long ago, they only needed a bachelor's degree.

this is all centered around health care occupations - many of these were initially associate degree occupations. My mom earned her RN through a diploma program in the dark ages. The nurses who took care of my husband on Friday at a free-standing surgery center had master's degrees! While I know it's not a requirement, just from an employment point of view, you're not competitive if you don't.
Though I am not a dietitian, I do have a master's in nutrition - to earn the dietitian credential would have been a lot more work than "just" my master's. If I didn't need my degree for teaching I wouldn't have it- total frosting.

[natshar]

I feel like there is going to be a shortage of psychical therapists. I know many young people who wanted to psychical therapists but then changed their minds during undergrad once they realized the work involved. Plus, as the baby boomers age people are using physical therapists more than ever before. But unlike nurses, you can't just churn out new ones in a couple years. A close family friend was looking into it, but just to get into the doctorate programs for PT you have to have high grades and lots of difficult lab sciences. It's not like anyone with any undergrad degree can just go straight into a PT doctorate.

[davewill]

I feel like there is going to be a shortage of psychical therapists. I know many young people who wanted to psychical therapists but then changed their minds during undergrad once they realized the work involved. Plus, as the baby boomers age people are using physical therapists more than ever before. But unlike nurses, you can't just churn out new ones in a couple years. A close family friend was looking into it, but just to get into the doctorate programs for PT you have to have high grades and lots of difficult lab sciences. It's not like anyone with any undergrad degree can just go straight into a PT doctorate.

What will happen, I guess, is that there will be one physical therapist in each office overseeing a herd of PT assistants. The assistants will be doing the work of a PT, but not getting the money.

[dfrecore]

I feel like there is going to be a shortage of psychical therapists. I know many young people who wanted to psychical therapists but then changed their minds during undergrad once they realized the work involved. Plus, as the baby boomers age people are using physical therapists more than ever before. But unlike nurses, you can't just churn out new ones in a couple years. A close family friend was looking into it, but just to get into the doctorate programs for PT you have to have high grades and lots of difficult lab sciences. It's not like anyone with any undergrad degree can just go straight into a PT doctorate.

What will happen, I guess, is that there will be one physical therapist in each office overseeing a herd of PT assistants. The assistants will be doing the work of a PT, but not getting the money.

They didn't spend the money to get the degree, so they won't make as much.  It's the way of the world.  And, if they decide to put in the time and money because they think it's worth it, then they will.  Nothing to stop them.

At my PT office, not only does my PT have PT Assistants, he also has people going through their masters program doing their clinicals.  They are just as good as he is, under his watchful eye.  I'm fine with whoever I get when I go in there, they're all good.

[cookderosa]

I feel like there is going to be a shortage of psychical therapists. I know many young people who wanted to psychical therapists but then changed their minds during undergrad once they realized the work involved. Plus, as the baby boomers age people are using physical therapists more than ever before. But unlike nurses, you can't just churn out new ones in a couple years. A close family friend was looking into it, but just to get into the doctorate programs for PT you have to have high grades and lots of difficult lab sciences. It's not like anyone with any undergrad degree can just go straight into a PT doctorate.

What will happen, I guess, is that there will be one physical therapist in each office overseeing a herd of PT assistants. The assistants will be doing the work of a PT, but not getting the money.

Already happening.
I had shoulder surgery a couple years back. My first apt saw my PT but every apt after was the PTA until my last - the PT signed me off. I went weekly for several months and learned the staff by name. There was always one PT there (mine or the other one) but a good number of PTAs did all the therapy.

[Jonathan Whatley]

Honestly, I don't think occupational therapists and physical therapists need doctoral degrees. Their work is not that complicated. They aren't performing surgery, making compex diagnoses, writing prescriptions, or treating mental illnesses. Not too long ago, they only needed a bachelor's degree.

fwiw: Like in the U.S., the minimum professional entry degree for OTs in Canada shifted from bachelor’s to master’s around the mid-2000s.

Last year the largest province, Ontario, proclaimed "psychotherapy" a controlled act. After a transition period, psychotherapy can only be performed by law by certain regulated health professionals: physicians, nurses, psychologists and psychological associates, social workers and social service workers, registered psychotherapists… and occupational therapists. Psychotherapy is defined here as "Treating by means of psychotherapy technique, delivered through a therapeutic relationship, an individual’s serious disorder of thought, cognition, mood, emotional regulation, perception, or memory that may seriously impair the individual’s judgment, insight, behavior, communication or social functioning."

This doesn’t mean every OT can practice psychotherapy for serious disorders. The regulatory body for OTs maintains its own Standards for Psychotherapy, including that OTs practicing psychotherapy require theoretical and practical training in psychotherapy, and substantive supervision by an experienced psychotherapist for at least the first three years.