The UNMC Division of Physical Therapy Education has offered a 3-week Summer Experiential Education (SEED) program since 2017 for international PT students. This summer, the program enrolled 33 international students from seven universities around the world.
The program includes online lectures with PT faculty, student roundtable sessions with current UNMC DPT students, and group discussions/presentations. The purpose of the SEED program is to provide an early experiential opportunity for junior PT students to learn about PT education at UNMC and the PT profession in the United States.
Director of the Global Health Opportunity Program and Associate Professor in the Division of Physical Therapy Education Joseph Siu, PhD, said, “we hope to identify future candidates to apply to our DPT Global program through this SEED program. This is the fifth year we’ve opened the program for international students to apply. We did two years of an in-person model and moved to an online version since 2021.”
Prospective PT students are first selected from their home universities and submit their online application for selection at UNMC. Upon the completion of all required assignments, students in the SEED program will receive a certificate of completion. They will become our advocates to share their experience with peers in their home universities.
Since 2017, we have enrolled more than 90 international PT students to the SEED programs, eight of them successfully admitted to our DPT Global program, and two students are applying for Fall 2023.
“Such outcomes are very encouraging!” said Dr. Siu.