Timeline

1927	The Physical Therapy Program at Northwestern University was established with Gertrude Beard, PT as Technical Director. It was an 8-month program following graduation from a school of nursing or physical education. The program offered a Certificate in Physical Therapy.
1928	The Physical Therapy Program was accredited as one of the first 6 schools of physical therapy and has been continuously accredited ever since. We are proud to be the oldest continuously operating and continuously accredited PT school in the country.
1945	The Physical Therapy Program established a post-professional graduate program in cooperation with the Department of Anatomy and Physiology at Northwestern University's Medical School, and awarded Master of Science degree.
1952	Elizabeth Wood, PT became Technical Director and later the Educational Administrator.
1953	The program began offering a Baccalaureate of Science in Physical Therapy degree, which continued until 1990.
1972	Sally C. Edelsberg, PT, MS became Program Director.
1990	The program began offering the Master of Physical Therapy as a professional degree.
2000	John D. Brooke, PhD became the Director and the Physical Therapy Program became the Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences within Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.
2001	NUPTHMS began offering the Doctor of Physical Therapy as a professional degree. The curriculum was increased by 8 weeks, including lengthening the full time terminal clinical experiences by 5 weeks. Additional content in differential diagnosis including imaging, health promotion and disease, injury and secondary disability prevention was also added.
2004	NUPTHMS had our most recent accreditation site visit in October 2004. The report was very positive and we are fully accredited until 2014.
2006	Jules Dewald, PT, Ph.D. became the Chair of the Department in April. NUPTHMS, in cooperation with the Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering/Computer Science, established a joint DPT/PhD degree program.
2007	The PhD specialty in Human Movement Sciences was offered for the first time through the Northwestern University Institute for Neuroscience in the Fall of 2007.
2009	The DPT curriculum was revamped to accommodate changes in the sequencing of didactic and clinical education components. To facilitate theses changes, and to decompress the number of hours spent in the classroom each day, an 8th trimester was added.