The Manual Therapy Institute offers a planned program of post-professional clinical and didactic education that prepares a clinician in the subspecialty of orthopedic manual physical therapy. The clinical and didactic instruction is intensive and includes extensive mentored clinical experience and provides a sufficient and appropriate patient population to create an environment for building advanced clinical skills. We seek to produce highly skilled autonomous practitioners who are critical thinkers and lifelong learners. Fellowship graduates will represent the best clinicians in the physical therapy profession, equipped to teach and mentor fellows, clinicians, and students.

The program incorporates current best evidence with a patho-functional morphological model. This model describes how changes in function can lead to restricted movement and complaints of pain. The ability to perform a focused evaluation that identifies the movement dysfunction provides for efficient intervention. For example, it is not the greater trochanteric bursitis that gets treated, but the underlying movement dysfunction that leads to the greater trochanteric bursitis. It is not the rotator cuff tendonopathy that gets treated, but the underlying movement dysfunction that leads to the tendonopathy. The patho-functional morphological model of examination and intervention focuses on the cause of the problem rather than the symptoms and facilitates a comprehensive approach to treatment.

The fellowship program has a formal relationship with Texas State University San Marcos for shared resources including space faculty and other educational resources. Currently we have fellowship programs in Atlanta, Chicago, Londonderry, Phoenix and San Marcos. The Manual Therapy Institute is credentialed by the APTA and recognized by the AAOMPT as a post-professional clinical fellowship program in orthopedic manual physical therapy.