This is the preliminary (or launch) version of the 2024-2025 VCU Bulletin. We may add courses that expose our students to cutting-edge content and transformative learning. We may also add content to the general education program that focuses on racial literacy and a racial literacy graduation requirement, and may receive notification of additional program approvals after the launch. The final edition and full PDF version will include these updates and will be available in August prior to the beginning of the fall semester.
ALHP 202. Creative Expressions of Healing and Resilience. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. This course will take students on a journey exploring ways that people from diverse backgrounds use creative expression (e.g. story, poetry, painting, drawing, dance, music, etc.) to help them define the meaning of life events. During the course, students will explore creative expression from a variety of people who have experienced some major life event and have used creative expression as a part of their healing. In addition, students will have the opportunity to discover their own voice in creative expression through a variety of interactive exercises.
ALHP 300. Communication Strategies in Health Services. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. This course explores the principles of effective communication in health services. Students will discuss the tenets of relationship-centered care and how communication promotes healthy interpersonal relationships between their clients/patients, their colleagues and within themselves. Students will learn key communication techniques to help develop rapport and relationships. Students will also have an opportunity to engage in working through conflict resolution and facilitating challenging and sensitive conversations.
ALHP 310. Introduction to Health Care Professions. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours (delivered online or face-to-face). 3 credits. Provides an introduction to health professions and careers with an emphasis on allied health. Introduces concepts of professionalism and interprofessional collaboration in the health care services environment; basic knowledge of issues and trends in health promotion and delivery; and cultural and economic factors impacting health equity and access.
ALHP 320. Person-centered Care. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours (delivered online or face-to-face). 3 credits. Provides an introduction to person-centered care and examines the relationships between patients, their families and health care providers. Emphasizes the role that these relationships and interactions play in the current health care services system and how they lead to better quality of care, increased satisfaction with health care providers and improved health outcomes. Introduces concepts of professionalism and interprofessional collaboration in the health care services environment; basic knowledge of issues and trends in health promotion and delivery; and cultural and economic factors impacting health equity and access.
ALHP 325. Introduction to Rehabilitation Services. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours (delivered online or face-to-face). 3 credits. Provides an overview of rehabilitative services. Familiarizes students in the areas of chronic illness and disability in interdisciplinary rehabilitation professions and settings. Introduces public policy and legislation pertinent to rehabilitation services.
ALHP 330. Human Growth and Development for the Health Professions. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours (delivered online or face-to-face). 3 credits. Examines the major theories and research of human development across the lifespan. Focuses on physical, emotional, social and cognitive aspects. Emphasizes how developmental processes relate to persons, including those who experience illness and disability.
ALHP 340. Health Care Technology and Innovation. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours (delivered online or face-to-face). 3 credits. Emphasizes the “hows and whys” of recent advances and disrupters in health care information systems. Students will design a life-saving (or money-making) app.
ALHP 391. Special Topics. 1-4 Hours.
Semester course; 1-4 credits. Prerequisite: permission of instructor. Offered for undergraduate level. Interdisciplinary study through lectures, tutorial study or independent research of selected topics not provided in other courses.
ALHP 410. Professional and Clinical Ethics. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours (delivered online or face-to-face). 3 credits. Emphasizes the ethical responsibility of health care providers and health services professionals. Discusses the role of professions’ codes of ethics and the role of personal values. Provides students with tools to navigate ethical problems and tensions in the health care environment.
ALHP 415. Health Care Financing and Budgeting. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours (delivered online or face-to-face). 3 credits. Examines payment for health care services. Shows how the results of financial operations are recorded and evaluated. Develops basic skills for financial management of health care organizations.
ALHP 416. Health Care Economics. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours (delivered online or face-to-face). 3 credits. Prerequisite: ECON 210. This course introduces basic knowledge of microeconomics principles/concepts/theories as tools for understanding health and health care issues, explores the fundamentals of health and health services as markets, as well as how these may differ from markets for other goods and services. In addition, this course discusses market failure and the role of government in the demand and supply sides of health care. Finally, this course introduces basic concepts of economic evaluation methods in health care where students will learn the meaning of equity and efficiency in the health care system.
ALHP 420. Positive Organizational Leadership Development. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours (delivered online or face-to-face). 3 credits. Focuses on the development of leadership skills. Introduces students to positive organizational scholarship and its impact on organizational performance/outcomes and employee engagement. Provides students with an opportunity to identify and develop their leadership characteristics.
ALHP 425. Health Care Management and Performance. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours (delivered online or face-to-face). 3 credits. Examines the role of managers in health care organizations and effective management of organizational performance, including quality.
ALHP 430. Overview of Research in the Health Professions. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours (delivered online or face-to-face). 3 credits. Prerequisites: UNIV 200 and STAT 210. Emphasizes the preparation of professionals as consumers of research who will find, understand, interpret and apply research findings in their professional practice. Stresses the capacity to critically analyze and utilize research findings and evaluate the outcomes of programs, interventions and services.
ALHP 435. Health Care Career Development and Planning in Allied Health Professions. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 2 lecture (delivered online or face-to-face) and 1 field experience hours (60 service hours). 3 credits. Prerequisite: ALHP 310. Emphasizes the preparation of students for job search or future professional and educational opportunities. Provides an opportunity for service learning and relevant experiential, applied learning in a health services field. Graded as satisfactory/unsatisfactory.
ALHP 573. Teaching in Health Professional Schools. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Study of the relationships between health education and higher education in general, current essentials, standards in education for the health professions and theoretical approaches to the implementation of these standards in both academic and clinical learning. Emphasis will be placed on modes of adapting to future needs of the professions.
ALHP 582. Supervision in the Allied Health Professions. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 2 lecture and 2 laboratory hours. 3 credits. Study of the supervisory process and staff development, training in communication and interpersonal skills, and public relations within the health facility.
ALHP 591. Special Topics. 1-4 Hours.
Semester course; 1-4 credits. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. Interdisciplinary study through lectures, tutorial study or independent research of selected topics not provided in other courses. Graded as Pass/Fail.
ALHP 594. Health Education Practicum. 1-6 Hours.
Semester course; 1 lecture and 4 laboratory hours. 1-6 credits. Preparation, presentation and evaluation of selected educational experiences in the appropriate graduate program. Section 801: general; Section 802: nurse anesthesia; Section 803: clinical laboratory science.
ALHP 596. Supervisory and Administrative Practicum in Allied Health Clinics. 1-9 Hours.
Semester course; 60 clinical hours per credit. 1-9 credits. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. The course is designed for the student who will be assuming supervisory and administrative roles. Areas to be covered include clinical personnel management, budgeting and ordering of materials and equipment, consultation with physicians, developing and troubleshooting clinical methods, designing job descriptions and implementation of quality control programs. Section 01: Clinical Laboratory Sciences Section 02: Physical Therapy.
ALHP 701. Health Services Delivery Systems. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 credits. Examines the structure and function of the U.S. health-care delivery system, the concepts and processes of health and illness, the institutional and individual providers of health services and related theory. Focuses on interdisciplinary care. Emphasizes meeting the unique needs of ethnically and culturally diverse populations.
ALHP 702. Finance and Economic Theory for Health Care. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 credits. Focuses on foundational concepts of micro-economic theory and their application in analyzing health care; understanding the structure and dynamics of health-care markets; and on monitoring and controlling the allocation of resources within health organizations. Emphasizes each of the health-care disciplines and how finance and economics affect the practice of delivery and evaluation.
ALHP 708. Health Science Ethics. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Applies the principles of biomedical and health-care ethics to develop a more informed understanding of ethical decision making in the formulation of health-care policy as well as within the clinical environment. Focuses on utilizing and searching biomedical ethics literature, current issues in biomedical ethics, the discipline and process of ethical reflection and case consultation.
ALHP 712. Instructional Design and Evaluation for Health Sciences. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Examines various aspects of curriculum development, including instructional design and use of multimedia technology for teacher-learner communication and learner growth and development pertinent to doctoral education. Covers relevant learning theories in higher education and implications on curriculum design. Requires students to develop a Web-based interactive, multimedia course.
ALHP 716. Grant Writing for Health Science Research. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Examines fundamentals of allied health grant writing and proposal preparation in the health related sciences, including funding source determination, responding to an RFP, basic elements of a proposal, proposal review procedures and allocation processes. Requires development of a complete proposal and critique of existing proposals.
ALHP 718. Health Informatics. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 credits. Analyzes current information and management systems from an allied health sciences perspective. Emphasizes knowledge representation in health care, information needs, storage and retrieval, clinical information systems, standards of health information management and the evaluation of information management systems. Stresses the efficient and innovative use of technology.
ALHP 760. Descriptive and Univariate Statistical Methods for Health Sciences. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Examines basic concepts and techniques of statistical methods, enabling individuals to conduct scientific inquiry as well as critical appraisal of the scientific literature. Includes the collection and display of information, data analysis and statistical measures; variation, sampling and sampling distributions; point estimation, confidence intervals and tests of hypotheses for one- and two-sample problems; principles of one-factor experimental design, one-way analysis of variance and multiple comparisons; and correlation and regression analysis.
ALHP 761. Health Science Research Design I. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Covers the design of experimental and quasi-experimental studies in the health care field. Emphasizes issues related to measurement, validity of designs, sampling and data collection. Focuses on the logic of causal inference, including formulation of testable hypotheses, and the design, methods and measures that facilitate research.
ALHP 762. Multivariate Statistical Methods for Health Sciences. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Examines multivariate statistical analysis and evaluation research methods with application to health related science research. Emphasizes data reduction techniques, factor analysis, principle components, discriminant analysis and logistic regression to analyze data in the health field.
ALHP 763. Health Science Research Design II. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Prerequisites: ALHP 760, ALHP 761 and ALHP 762. Prepares students to design, implement and interpret studies that evaluate the outcome and effectiveness of health services delivery. Emphasizes identification of emerging trends in health related sciences research, identification of meaningful research questions based on existing information and the use of primary and secondary data to assess outcomes.
ALHP 764. Advanced Methods for Health Sciences Research. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 credits. Examines the application of multivariate statistical analysis and evaluation methods to health related sciences research. Emphasizes advanced statistical methods (e.g., LISREL, Event History Analysis) and design to analyze panel data in the health field. Elective course.
ALHP 765. Data Management for Health Science Research. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Enrollment is restricted to students in the Ph.D. in Health Related Sciences program or with permission from the program director. This course provides an introduction to the management, cleaning, transformation and visualization of data for use in health sciences research. Within the context of this course students will become familiar with how to use multiple statistical software packages for data management. Emphasis will be placed on organizing and naming data files, data cleaning, performing basic data transformations, transferring data across software platforms, graphing data, testing assumptions, manipulating data in preparation for data analysis, and documenting processes for reproducibility.
ALHP 781. Doctoral Seminar. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 seminar hours. 3 credits. Enrollment is restricted to students with permission of the instructor. The student's desired topic of study must be identified and approved prior to enrollment. Studies specific topics in the area of the student's specialty track.
ALHP 792. Independent Study. 1-6 Hours.
Semester course; 1-6 credits. May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credits. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. Offers special individual study or research leading toward investigation in specialty track. Conducted under the guidance of a faculty adviser.
ALHP 793. Research Practicum. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 credits. Offers supervised investigation of selected problems in the area of the student's specialty track. Includes conducting and analyzing field research.
ALHP 795. Teaching Practicum. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 practicum hours. 3 credits. Enrollment is restricted to students in the Ph.D. in Health Related Science Program with permission from their adviser or the program director. Offers students the opportunity to gain supervised practical experience related to role of academic educator. Includes applied skills of instruction, reflection and evaluation of student learning outcomes. Conducted under the guidance of a faculty adviser.
ALHP 890. Dissertation Seminar. 3 Hours.
Semester course; 3 credits. Deals with general purpose, content and functions of the dissertation process related to the student's specialty track. Leads to the preparation of dissertation proposal.
ALHP 899. Dissertation Research. 1-9 Hours.
Semester course; variable hours. Variable credit. Minimum of 9 semester hours required for Ph.D. Prerequisites: Completion of required course work and comprehensive examination. Covers dissertation research under the direction of a faculty adviser.