A Doctor of Science in Physical Therapy degree is awarded to a student who has completed the program of study and:
- Successful completion of 66 credits
- Achieved a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher.
- Completed all courses with a grade of C (77%) or higher.
- Successfully completed the research comprehensive examination.
- Successfully completed the educational track comprehensive capstone.
- Successfully completed the Doctoral Project.
- Submitted Intent to Graduate Form (available on the College web site).
- The maximum time of completion is 5 years for the fellowship certificate and/or 5 years for the DSc degree.
- Has submitted for publication the research project and systematic review (see below for details)
With the assistance of the DSc research project committee, it is the responsibility of every DSc student to publish their scoping/systematic review and research project manuscript in a peer-reviewed journal. Publication is considered the pinnacle end state, taking a project through the full spectrum from planning to execution to acceptance by peer scientists. The expectation is that the scoping/systematic review will have been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for initial consideration no later than the end of August after DSC905 Research Methodologies and Doctoral Project V. The expectation by the end of DSC906 Research Methodologies and Doctoral Project VI is that both the scoping/systematic review and research project manuscript will be 1) submitted and under full review with a peer-reviewed journal, or 2) accepted for publication or published in a peer-reviewed journal.
For those students whose scoping/systematic review and/or research project manuscript has 1) initially been submitted and rejected after December 1 of your final semester, or 2) entered peer review with a journal, but was then subsequently rejected after December 1 of your final semester, adjustments will be made. For these cases, the expectation is that the scoping/systematic review and/or research project manuscript will be updated, revised and resubmitted to appropriate peer-reviewed journals within four months of rejection.
If the scoping/systematic reviews and/or research project manuscript are rejected from a journal after the December 1 deadline, and the manuscript is not resubmitted within four months from notice of rejection, the DSc student agrees to relinquish authorship to the committee members and only the committee members retain the right to pursue publication with the materials. Resubmissions can include as many of the previous student members of the scoping/systematic review and/or research project group that still show interest in wanting to publish their research findings, but the Bellin DSc faculty reserve the right to take the lead and publish the work, to include being the lead authors. The intent is to have everyone publish their work, and we will work with everyone diligently toward that end state, even after they have completed graduation requirements. However, policies need to be in place to ensure that projects are able to reach completion, even if only one or no students end up remaining interested in pursuing that final state.