A rose is
a rose and
a physical
therapist is
a physical
therapist.
Are you a
“RPT, LPTA,
MSPT.MPT,
DPT, PhD,
BSPT, SPT?
Do your
patients address you as “Mister”, “Ms.”,
“Doctor”? Look at your nametag. What
name and designation(s) do you have
printed? The public deserves our assistance
getting through this quagmire of profes¬
sional alphabet soup. Imagine being a hos¬
pital patient (not in the United States)
where you are unfamiliar with the language
and titles used for the health care profes¬
sionals. You are clueless as to what the suffix
professional letters mean and you noticed
that the male medical doctors are called
“mister”, not “doctor”. Is there any reason
to believe that patients are not equally con¬
fused? If we were to explain the plethora of
mix n’ match letters, as well as the multiple
entry-level and post-graduate degrees avail¬
able for a physical therapist, we would
waste an entire intervention session with
the patient.
There are three areas of concern that I
would like to address about our professional
What's in a Name?
by JUDY A. WHITE, PT, Chair
identifier. . . the “name”, the “degree”, and
the “license.”
Should my nametag indicate “Judy” or
“Judith”? In my case, “Judy” would be cor¬
rect as that is my legal name. How about
“Buddy” Smith instead of “Norman” Smith?
It doesn’t matter that everyone, including
his mother and friends, refer to Mr. Smith as
“Buddy” and no one has ever called him
otherwise. The fact is that he is licensed as
“Norman” and by law, he is required to pre¬
sent himself to the public with his official
and licensed name. GS 90-640.
Ah, the academic degree dilemma has
become more complex ever since physical
therapy expanded beyond the bachelor’s
degree. Entry-level physical therapy degrees
now have a variety of designations, from
BSPT to MPT to DPT. However, no matter
what the degree, these “letters” are specifi¬
cally and only academic degrees. In fact, an
academic degree is not a license to practice
physical therapy and, therefore, should
NOT be used as the professional designa¬
tion in a practice setting in which the pub¬
lic perceives that they are interacting with
a licensed physical therapy professional.
Given a choice of using “Judy White, PT” or
“Judy White, MPT”, the former would be
appropriate as the “PT” is the clinical desig¬
nation associated with licensure, not the
academic degree. In addition, the designa¬
tion “SPT/STPA” is not accepted as an offi¬
cial professional designation for students in
physical therapy. Students are also not
licensed as a “student physical therapist” I
would advise that a student’s name tag
should read as, for example, “Judy White,
UNC-CH physical therapy student”.
Now back to the “PT/PTA” designation as
the license. Although “RPT” (registered
PT) and “LPT /LPTA” (licensed PT/PTA)
were once the norm for licensure, they are
NOT the current appropriate designation.
For once, we have evolved to simplicity.
“PT/PTA” is really all that is needed to indi¬
cate that we are licensed physical therapy
professionals.
So, you have a “Ph.D” and are accus¬
tomed to being called “Doctor”. Save it for
the hallowed halls of academia. And there
are those of you who have a “DPT” degree.
Once again, this is an academic degree, not
licensure. I would recommend that the
essential emphasis to the public should be
that you are a “physical therapist”, so intro¬
duce yourself as such. If you choose to
identify yourself as “Doctor”, you would be
doing not only a disservice to the patient,
but also to the profession, if you also failed
to clarify' in the same breath that you are
the physical therapist. It is simply neither
fair nor professional to confuse the public
with letters and jargon that could be only a
smoke screen for professional status.
What’s in a name? Simply put, a
licensed physical therapist is a “PT”. . .
nothing more, and nothing less.
Disciplinary Actions
by BEN F. MASSEY, Jr., PT, Executive Director
In meeting its responsibility of public
protection, one of the primary responsibil¬
ities of the Licensure Board is to discipline
individuals who have violated the Practice
Act. This is also the toughest job for Board
members. It is such an agonizing job to
decide the fate of a colleague and deter¬
mine what is an appropriate disciplinary
action for the violation that has been com¬
mitted. To meet that fine line between
punishment and a willingness to show
compassion for genuine remorse is at
times heart wrenching. Most of the
licensees who appear before the Board are
basically “good people” who made very
poor choices, some under extenuating cir¬
cumstances and although somewhat
understandable, still not acceptable.
I have had the pleasure of serving the
Board as Executive Director (ED) for
almost she years. In my role as ED, I serve
as a member of and coordinator for the
Investigative Committee (IC). In addition,
as a physical therapist, I assist the Board’s
Investigator (Doug Kearns) in conducting
investigations and interviews. In NC, the
Investigative Committee serves as a Proba¬
ble Cause Committee to determine if there
is probable cause for the Board to disci¬
pline a licensee. The Investigative Com¬
mittee was established by' a change in the
Board’s rules in 1995 and it consists of
the ED and one member of the Board
appointed by' the Chair. Over the past six
years, NC has been fortunate to have had
three extremely' dedicated individuals ( J.
Herman Bunch, Geraldine K. Highsmith,
and Patricia Stavrakas Hodson) who were
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