My kid is finishing up her sophomore year of college and is thinking about graduate school for physical therapy. Many of these schools require courses in anatomy and physiology, with lab. the problem is her college doesn’t offer that. one option she has is to take Human Physiology in the biology department, but there is no lab component, and there is no anatomy class. another option is to try to get permission to take Anatomy and Physiology as a combined class in her college’s nursing school, which actually does have a lab. but it’s in the nursing school- so would this be looked down upon in any way (if she can even get in to the class)? she doesn’t want to waste her time taking either class if she is going to have to take them again someplace else to get into PT school.
sorry- this is a pretty specialized question. not sure anyone here will really know the answer.
I’m no expert, but my D is considering PT school as well. I think the A&P offered in nursing would suffice. For my nursing degree I took A&P at community college and graduated with a BSN from a state university. But maybe she could ask around at a few different programs just to be sure.
her BA is in a major called Human Health- kind of interdisciplinary with some Bio, Psychology, Anthropology, nutrition, Sociology, Bioethics, public health…it’s a nice major but doesn’t really cover a lot of pre-req’s for med school or PA or PT school.
Yes, the nursing one is probably correct and no one is looking down on that since some of those students would be applying to the same PT programs. She will not be the first person needing that class. She should start with her advisor first.
She could take it at a community college or other local 4 year college in the summer, but the condensed time would be intense.
This is actually a pretty common problem for students going into allied health professions. Can you contact the PT schools she is interested in or some that might be familiar with her college and ask them what they would suggest? I would think the nursing class (if she can get into it) will suffice. Many students end up taking A/P with lab at a community college.
UC Davis has some helpful pre-req grids on their website. Here is the one for physical therapy.
Thanks all. I agree she should try to get that nursing school anat and phys class if they let her in it. It’s all that’s offered so I imagine it wouldn’t be frowned upon and is probably quite rigorous. The problem is if she goes abroad 2nd semester she will need to take the 2nd semester of that class in senior year, when she is planning to take physics, and that’s a pretty tough senior year. But either she sucks it up and does that, or ahe skips physics and spends a summer taking it or takes it somewhere after college. It will be a lot easier finding a physics class than an anatomy and physiology class.
It is a hard class to break up - almost like a foreign language. Way easier to do the two semesters back to back if possible. And she would not need to get permission twice.
My daughter was a biology major and took AP 1 during undergrad. Once she decided which direction to take her degree in (worked for 2 years while deciding) she ended up needing AP 2. She was a little nervous about the time in between both classes but it was fine.
While I am sure taking it through the nursing school will be ok, I would have your daughter call a few schools to check their requirements.