By TwoCircles.net staff reporter,

New Delhi: Jamia Millia Islamia’s (JMI) Centre for Physiotherapy & Rehabilitation Sciences will introduce Ph.D. programme Physiotherapy in the coming academic session 2008-09.

The centre will also introduce a Masters in Physiotherapy in different specialties including Orthopaedics, Neurology and Cardiology in the 2009-10 academic session, said a statement issued by JMI on 26th May. Both the new courses were approved by the academic council of JMI in its meeting held on 19th February 2008. These courses will be in addition to the present highly-sought after Bachelors course which was begun last year and has an intake of 40 students.

The Bachelors course is of four and a half years’ duration. The third and fourth year students of Bachelors shall be posted in various government and private hospitals like AIIMS, Safdarjung Hospital, Apollo, Holy Family, VIMHANS, etc. in Delhi and NCR during the clinical posting and for internship.

The last date for the submission of applications for the Bachelors course is 2nd June 2008. The entrance test will be held on 11th June and the list of candidates called for interviews will be displayed on 26th June.

It is expected that introduction of these courses will be welcomed by the “Physiotherapy community" and prove to be a great boost to an important emerging discipline in India. Physiotherapy is emerging as an important discipline in the field of medicine. This is a multidisciplinary field which has immense potential for research programme in its thrust areas of Human health in the light of modern developments in Bio-Medical Sciences. The Physiotherapy protocols being used in practice to reduce human sufferings needs to be reviewed, updated and new technologies to be added which can be made possible only by research.

Most of the top ranking universities in developed world have active research work going as regular Ph.D. programme in thrust areas of Physiotherapy and allied discipline. Unfortunately, in India there is hardly any research activity in this field and not many universities are offering Ph.D. degree in spite of the fact that many universities are offering Masters course in Physiotherapy. JMI’s centre is well equipped with all the modern equipment for teaching and training by a team of well-qualified and experienced Faculty members, says the statement. In addition, it has an excellent functional Physiotherapy clinic which is attracting a large number of patients for advice and treatment.