Physical therapists, physician assistants ...SMSU acquires building for master's programs in health

by Karen E. Culp

SBJ Staff

A two-building complex where beer and pizza were sold will soon be a place to nourish the minds of aspiring physical therapists and physician assistants.

Southwest Missouri State University acquired the buildings at Cherry and Kimbrough, formerly home to Imo's Pizza and Brown Derby, in July and plans to raze them this month, making way for an approximately $3 million physical therapy building.

The L-shaped, two-story building will be home to two developing master's degree programs at SMSU: one in physical therapy, one in physician assistant studies.

The building will be about 23,000 square feet and is to be completed by August of 1999, said Doug Sampson, supervisor of design and construction for SMSU.

The general contractor for the project is DeWitt & Associates, and the architect is Hastings and Chivetta, the St. Louis-based company that worked on the public affairs building project.

HealthSouth, a national health care company that currently has two locations in Springfield, will lease 4,000 square feet of space in the building for an outpatient rehabilitation clinic. The company's marketing coordinator, Jill Lansdown, said the company will maintain three locations in Springfield.

"We will definitely keep both of the other clinics open," Lansdown said.

HealthSouth has its headquarters in Birmingham, Ala., and has nearly 2,000 clinics nationwide. Though the company's decision to locate in the new building was not a determining factor as to whether the new physical therapy building would be built, it was a significant portion of the overall plan, said Jeanne Thomas, dean of Health and Human Services at SMSU.

"The partnership with HealthSouth has been a very important one. Certainly their decision to locate a clinic in the building was a big contributor to the project overall," Thomas said.

HealthSouth will also provide $5,000 competitive scholarships to students in the physical therapy program, said Mark Horacek, department head, physical therapy. Students who earn a scholarship will work for the company for two years once they are licensed.

The building will contain two major teaching classrooms and two labs, and a computer room that can be taught from, as well, Horacek said. The physical therapy master's program is developing at SMSU and is currently seeking accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education.

The program will submit a Declaration of Intent to Apply for Accreditation, which is the formal application required in the accreditation stage. Submission of this document does not assure that the program will be granted "candidate for accreditation status," nor does it assure that the program will be granted initial accreditation.

The master's degree program, which is on track to accept its first class of students in the fall of 1999, accepts students who have baccalaureate degrees and who meet a list of prerequisites, Horacek said.

The program will accept a maximum of 25 students for its first class, and it is a three-year, eight-consecutive-semester program.

As with the physical therapy program, the physician assistant program is developing, said Patti Ragan, head of the program. Physician assistants perform a number of routine activities related to primary care and general health care, Ragan said.

Most students entering the program will have worked in health care previously and will be over 27 years old, on average. The physician assistant master's program is a 24-month program that involves 12 months of classroom instruction, and 12 months of field experience in various disciplines, such as emergency care or psychiatric care, to name two of many, Ragan said.

The physician assistant program will admit its first class of students in January of 2000, she added. The program is also seeking accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs.

"Our students will be a little different from the traditional graduate students. They will have, for example, as many as five years of experience in the health care field," Ragan said.

Both departments will add faculty. Ragan's program will have a core faculty of four, with a medical director and two administrative staff. Horacek's program will have six faculty and two staff.

Horacek and Susan Robinson, academic coordinator of clinical education for the physical therapy department, are already on board and will be part of the faculty.

Thomas said the new programs affirm the college's commitment to expanding the number of health care-related degree programs it offers. Both of these programs are the result of a five-year plan, undertaken in 1995.

The university is initiating a master's degree in physical therapy because bachelor degree programs are being phased out by the accrediting agency, Horacek said.

Lansdown said it was exciting for HealthSouth to be a part of developing the program at SMSU, and that the company is encouraged by the prospect of physical therapists coming out of the local market.

"It is also exciting for us to be bringing our services to the campus, where students can take advantage of them if they need to right here on their college campus," Lansdown said.

Students will have access to Health-South's services if first referred by Taylor Health Services.

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