Rheumatology education in an undergraduate program of physical therapy. A new outlook.

Few physical therapy education programs offer formal rheumatology courses taught by specialists in the field of rheumatic diseases. We modified, evaluated, and formalized a rheumatology course for undergraduate physical therapy students taught by a rheumatologist and a specially trained physical therapist. Although the course is applicable to our undergraduate program, the process we used to modify and evaluate the course content could be useful to others in their development of similar courses elsewhere. Our intent in discussing this process, the course content, and the rationale for our study is to stimulate a national review of rheumatology course content in physical therapy education programs.