Program Description

The Ph.D. is granted through the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health (PMCH). Through interdisciplinary experiences, including a solid theoretical and methodological foundation in clinical and community health-related rehabilitation services, students will be provided with the conceptual foundation and skills necessary to advance knowledge in Rehabilitation Science. Graduates of the Rehabilitation Science PhD should posses an overall understanding of rehabilitation science and health care based on the WHO model, be able to identify major research issues/questions in rehabilitation science, and have the ability to design and conduct research investigations aimed at answering questions focused on impairment, disability, and recovery in rehabilitative health care.  Areas of research in Rehabilitation Sciences include the assessment, development, restoration, and maintenance of independent function in persons with physical and cognitive impairments.  Rehabilitation Sciences also include methods to prevent disability and the examination of adaptation to functional impairment, and social limitations resulting from a disability.

Faculty with rehabilitation research experience from several departments at UTMB and the Transitional Learning Center, a community-based residential facility providing services for persons with acquired brain injury, are involved in the rehabilitation sciences curriculum. Departments and units represented in the curriculum include Internal Medicine (Geriatrics, Endocrinology), Occupational Therapy, Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation, Physical Therapy, Preventive Medicine and Community Health and the Sealy Center on Aging.

The curriculum includes an emphasis on the Institute of Medicine's - Enabling-Disabling Model of rehabilitation and health.¹ This model focuses on the need for outcomes research to reduce and prevent disability, and to advance evidence-based health care in rehabilitation.

Reference
1. Brandt EN, & Pope AM. Enabling America: Assessing the Role of Rehabilitation Science and Engineering. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997.