Our Mission
Our mission is to develop and graduate practitioners with highly specialized clinical reasoning and advanced skills to manage the medically complex patient across the acute care setting. At Duke, our faculty, staff, and residents are dedicated to transforming patient health, building healthier communities, and advancing the profession through excellence in teaching, research, and education.
What Makes Our Program Unique
With Duke’s Acute Care Physical Therapy Residency, you will gain experience in dynamic, multidisciplinary environments across the full continuum of inpatient care. This exposure is designed to strengthen your clinical reasoning and deepen your understanding of the complexities unique to acute care practice.
The residency is based at Duke University Hospital, which is consistently ranked among the top hospitals in the United States and is internationally recognized for excellence in patient care, innovation, and research.
Duke University Hospital offers a wide range of specialty services, providing opportunities to collaborate closely with an interdisciplinary team. Throughout your acute care rotations, you will receive exceptional mentorship from board-certified clinicians across multiple specialties.
Highlights of Our Program
Your residency year includes rotations across a wide range of acute care services, including General Medicine, General Surgery, Oncology, Wound Care, Neurology and Neurosurgery, Cardiology, Pulmonary, Orthopedics, and Trauma. You will also gain experience in their associated intensive care units.
Learning is reinforced through enrichment activities tied to each clinical area, including grand rounds, interdisciplinary rounds, and observational experiences. Some educational opportunities include journal article reviews and online didactic coursework.
There are opportunities to further develop your professional and communication skills through teaching within the Duke DPT program and participating in monthly case discussions with Duke’s residents and fellows using narrative reasoning.
A unique component of the program is a 12-week intensive course in cognitive behavioral therapy, designed to enhance your ability to address the emotional and psychological aspects of patient care.
How to Apply
All applicants must have graduated from an accredited PT program and be licensed or eligible for licensure in North Carolina. This program is 12 months long and typically runs from July to July.
Applications open October 1st, 2026. Interested individuals can fill out an application via RF-PTCAS to apply. All applications for the 2026 – 2027 residency are due by December 1, 2026.
Qualified applicants will be contacted via email regarding an in-person interview by mid-December. Interviews are typically held in late January.
