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Academy, St. Petersburg College Partner for New O&P School
By Miki Fairley A magnificent partnership has come together to establish a new
orthotics and prosthetics school, along with an Academy Learning
Center, at St. Petersburg College, St. Petersburg, Florida.
 The new O&P school will offer a baccalaureate
program, postgraduate certificate programs, and an associate degree
program for technicians. Online and video conferencing courses are
also in the plans.
The new school--which fills a void in O&P educational
opportunities in Florida and the rest of the Southeast region--is
the culmination of a vision shared by the American Academy of
Orthotists and Prosthetists (AAOP), the Florida Chapter of the
AAOP, The Florida Association of Orthotists and Prosthetists
(FAOP), and St. Petersburg College.
The Academy intends to help the new school by locating current
educators to partner with St. Petersburg in curriculum development
and to help recruit a qualified O&P professional to serve as
dean of the new school. Faculty members also will be needed. The
school will follow the guidelines of the National Commission on
Prosthetic & Orthotic Education (NCOPE). "The Academy is
working with NAPOE (National Association of Prosthetic &
Orthotic Educators) and NCOPE in helping to develop curriculum,"
according to Don Katz, CO, FAAOP, Academy president.
Solid Financing
Sound financing is backing the new school: the college is
contributing toward creation of space both for the new O&P
program and for the Academy Learning Center. The contribution
includes a $1 million donation of land, a federal grant of $1
million, funding of startup costs, including hiring a dean and
staff assistant to develop the program, and up to $500,000 in
matching funds. Close to $4 million has been committed to
theprogram. Another $750,000 must still be raised to fund the
development of a new building to house the facilities, and a
professional fundraiser has been hired to help accomplish this
goal.
The new school will enable students east of the Mississippi to
be able to obtain O&P education more easily and at less cost,
said Chester Littlefield, CPO, president of the Florida chapter of
the Academy. "With plans for courses available online, a facility
owner who has an employee who wants to obtain the education
necessary for ABC [American Board for Certification in Orthotics
& Prosthetics] certification won't lose his employee for two
years, and the employee won't have to spend as much time and
money."
"We want a program at St. Pete that is dynamic, accessible, and
financially viable," said Ron Gingras, CPO, FAOP education
committee chairman. "We need to learn from the other O&P
programs' successes and failures and try to think outside of the
educational models that now exist," he continued. "Distance
learning reduces the costs to the college, maximizes valuable
laboratory space and utilization of supply resources, and increases
the potential for recruitment, while providing the college with
additional revenue. It also can benefit students, since they can
get much of their learning done in preparation for admission to the
program and prior to relocation or additional travel to the
school's campus."
Stepping up to the plate to help raise the $750,000 needed for
the O&P program's physical facility, the FAOP and the Florida
chapter of the Academy are putting up matching funds of $25,000
each. "The FAOP will match each $1 donated, which turns a $1
donation into $2; the Florida chapter will also match each $1
donation, which turns it into $3; the St. Petersburg College
Foundation will then match each $3 in donations; turning every
original $1 donated into $6," Littlefield explained.
"The cohesiveness, teamwork, and shared vision of the FAOP and
the Florida chapter of the Academy have helped the dream become a
reality here in Florida," said Gingras. "However, it doesn't end
with the development of a program in Florida.
"We as practitioners are in a fight nationally for our
profession," Gingras stressed. "Practitioners need to get involved
and work with the Academy to embrace and support the profession's
greatest resource--our college programs. In recent years our
profession has been under attack and in decline, great programs
like NYU and UCLA are now gone, and other schools are struggling.
The future existence of the remaining programs depends largely on
the ingenuity of the colleges to adapt to a changing marketplace
and the support of practitioners in the profession. We as a
profession need to partner with colleges to provide them with the
financial and mentoring supports necessary to become financially
viable."
While a declining enrollment has been affecting other O&P
schools, Gingras feels this won't happen to St. Petersburg. Beside
the zealous support of the college's president and solid
commitments in financing, Gingras points to the school's extensive
experience and background in allied health education. The college
has 75 years of experience in allied health education and currently
offers 11 allied health programs to more than 1,500 students
yearly. The school also has bachelors degree programs in nursing
and dental hygiene, with more baccalaureate programs being
developed.
The college is a leader in distance learning and boasts a
multimillion-dollar infrastructure of equipment for Internet,
video, and satellite conferencing. Many medical professionals are
already associated with the college, which is also noted for its
partnering with other universities and institutions around the
country. With the college's allied health associate degree
programs, many students can enter a four-year O&P program with
their prerequisite courses already out of the way.
The Academy's Vision and Goals
The Academy's vision for the Learning Center includes a physical
location to increase the Academy's didactic and laboratory-based
education and also for distance learning opportunities through
workshops, seminars, and conferences, said Katz. "St. Pete's
significant infrastructure for distance learning and its commitment
and involvement with distance learning are very much in keeping
with the Academy's interest," he continued. "For several years, the
Academy has been planning and working on expanding continuing
education, the body of orthotic and prosthetic knowledge and
research, and having an actual brick-and-mortar structure as a
learning center for both didactic and hands-on education."
The facility also can serve as a venue for the Academy's
Clinical Standards of Practice (CSOP) consensus conferences, it was
noted. Other plans include the development of an O&P library
and museum with the assistance of the museum studies department of
St. Petersburg College.
An exciting but more distant goal is the development of an
"Academy of the Americas" to provide O&P education for Central
and South America, said Katz. The Academy is partnering with a task
force committee chaired by noted orthopedist Miguel Gomez, MD, to
develop learning opportunities for colleagues and students in Latin
America.
"The success shared by the organizations involved in making the
dream of an O&P school in the Southeast a reality represents a
tremendous grassroots commitment from practitioners who recognized
that we must take responsibility for the future of our profession
by supporting our educational programs," said Paul E. Prusakowski,
CPO, FAOP president and Academy vice president.
"The future also depends upon raising an awareness of this
profession as an option for college-age students looking for a
rewarding career," Prusakowski continued. "Now we all need to help
get more students into these O&P programs--participating in the
Academy's O&P Awareness Campaign [www.opcareers.org] is a great
way that we can all help guarantee the future of our
profession."
To donate funds or for more information, contact: Chester
Littlefield, CPO, Florida Chapter AAOP, president,
813.975.7139; fcaaop@aol.com; or Dr. Janice
Buchanan, campaign director, O&P Program, St. Petersburg
College Foundation Inc., 727.341.3319; buchananj@spcollege.edu 
Table Of Contents - November 2003
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