By Dylan Kirchner
Triangle Contributor
For the second consecutive year, graduates of the Wingate’s upstart occupational therapy program posted a 100-percent pass rate on the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy (NBCOT) exam.
The first cohort of students for the university’s Occupational Therapy Department (OTD) were admitted in 2019 and graduated in May of 2022. Both years yielded a 100 percent pass rate since the program’s start. There were 31 graduates from the Wingate OTD that took the NBCOT exam in 2023.
The NBCOT exams are four hours long and scored on a scale of 300 to 600 points. In order to pass the exam, students must score at least 450 points to become eligible to be a registered occupational therapist.
Dr. Melissa Sweetman, the founding director of Wingate’s OTD program, attributes the success of graduates to the hands-on learning students take part in during their education at Wingate. One of these opportunities is the pro bono clinic students operate in the OTD.
“I think the way we have integrated our free clinic into our Level 1 fieldwork coursework is instrumental in preparing our students for the exam,” Sweetman said.
The pro bono clinic provides free occupational therapy services to community residents who do not have access to these services through insurance. Students have the opportunity to practice hands-on services and gain practical skills for their future careers. Combined, the occupational therapy and physical therapy clinics have saved patients $83,697 as of December 2023, according to Wingate Levine College of Heath Science records.
The OTD performance comes on the heels of a Wingate physical therapy program that posted a 93.8-percent pass rate on the National Physical Therapy Exam (NPTE) for 2023 graduates on the first attempt in January. That figure was 8.5-percent higher than the national average. The NPTE is an exam administered by the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy that graduates must pass to become licensed physical therapists in the United States.
The recent cohort of 2023 Wingate graduates to take the NTPE totaled 48 students. Nationally, 84 percent of candidates from accredited physical therapy programs in the U.S. passed the NTPE on the first attempt in the 2023 exam year.
Wingate’s Department of Physical Therapy originally set a goal for first-time pass rates of 80 percent each year, according to department officials. Over the past six years, this goal has been exceeded annually by graduates of the nine-semester-long program.
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