Fellowship Program

What is the Fellowship Program?

Advance your knowledge and clinical skills with the highest level of clinical training. Become a clinical expert and a Fellow in the American Academy of Orthopaedic Manual Physical Therapists.

The curriculum is designed in a stacked format, which means that each subsequent course builds on the previous courses. Therefore, all courses need to be taken in the established sequence. The academic curriculum includes 17 onsite weekend courses as well as 5 online home study courses. It utilizes an evidence-informed, comprehensive approach, which facilitates an effective treatment plan for your patients.

Program completion requires a minimum of 17 months, a maximum of 36 months, with 450 supervised clinical hours, 400 of which are spent in the clinic, one-on-one with a mentor. This design provides fellow students with opportunities to evaluate and treat patients in collaboration with experienced manual therapists.

The clinical instruction component of the curriculum is the strength of this program. Advanced evaluation and treatment skills are emphasized. A sound framework of clinical reasoning and decision-making is utilized as well as significant time in instruction in skilled treatment.

MTI’s Fellowship Admission Requirements

  1. Successful completion of the first year course work of the Manual Therapy Institute’s’ Certification Program.
  2. Graduates from an Orthopedic Residency Program do not have to complete the first-year course work of the Certification Program and can enroll directly in the Fellowship Program.

Fellowship Course Requirements

Course Title
Hours in the Program
Pain Science
8
Advanced Lumbar Spine40
Advanced Cervical Spine
40
Advanced Thoracic Spine
8
Integrated Treatment Concepts
8
Medical Exercise Therapy
16
Spine Manipulations
8
Extremity Manipulations
8
Introduction to Adverse Neural Tension
8
Gross Anatomy
16
Advanced Extremities
40
EBP Project12
Clinical Pharmacology
12
Clinical Radiology
12
Ethics/Medical Legal Issues
4
Differential Diagnosis
6

Advances in orthopedic surgery and regenerative medicine
4
TMJ
6

Directed Projects (including, but not limited to EBP, Radiology, Pharmacology, Differential Diagnosis). Awarded hours with documentation of work
120
Grand Rounds (varies per clinical setting)
30
Clinical Mentoring

1:1 clinical supervision/instruction from clinical faculty while treating patients
150

1:1 patient related planning/discussion/review of diagnostic test, evaluation, plan of care etc.
40

Clinical Practice with mentor accessible onsite
260

Fellow Project: case study presentation suitable for journal submission and poster presentation, based on final live patient exam
120
Exams
40
Total hours in Program
1016