- The Department of Rehabilitation Sciences was established in 2018 in alignment with the Qatar National Health Strategy and the World Health Organization's Rehabilitation 2030 Initiative, both of which emphasize the essential role of rehabilitation in achieving universal health coverage and improving quality of life.
- Originally known as the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences, it proudly launched the first Physiotherapy undergraduate program in Qatar in 2018, with its inaugural cohort admitted in 2019. In 2023, the department expanded its academic offerings with the establishment of the first Speech and Language Pathology (SLP) undergraduate program in Qatar, welcoming its first cohort in 2024. The same year marked another milestone—the first male student intake for both the Physiotherapy and SLP programs.
- The department is home to a diverse team of international faculty and part-time lecturers from leading public and private healthcare institutions including Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC), Aspetar, Sidra Medicine, The View Hospital, Shaffalah and the Doha Clinic Medical Center, ensuring that students benefit from rich academic and clinical expertise.
- In 2023, the Qatar Rehabilitation Therapy Students Association (QRTSA) was established to promote student leadership and professional engagement, while the Clinical Education Advisory Board, launched in 2024, continues to strengthen partnerships across the health sector.
- Our Physiotherapy graduates are now employed at major healthcare institutions such as HMC, PHCC, Sidra Medicine, Naufar, Aspetar, The View Hospital, and Qatar University, with others pursuing licensure or advanced studies abroad at universities such as the University of Pittsburgh, McMaster University, and the University of Copenhagen.
- Looking ahead, the first cohort of Speech and Language Pathology graduates—including the first male graduates from both programs—will proudly complete their studies in 2027, marking another significant milestone in Qatar's rehabilitation education journey.
- We are also proud to announce that The Physiotherapy program is fully accredited by the World Physiotherapy 2025-2030, reflecting our commitment to the highest standards of quality in education.
Educational Objectives
Our graduates will
demonstrate:
- Excellent communication skills that empower, motivate and evoke positive health behaviours;
- An understanding the diversity of the lived health experience and how this knowledge informs their practice and
- Knowledge of where they, as individual practitioners, and the professional community collectively, can influence individual and population health.
We will develop
graduates who:
- Employ an evidence-based, patient-centered approach to the examination and evaluation of individuals living with conditions affecting movement;
- Who are skilled in the observation and analysis of human movement across the lifespan and
- Who use a biopsychosocial model to consider how limitations in an individual’s movement can impact quality of life and engagement in society.
We will facilitate, educate and
empower our graduates to be:
- Competent evidence based-practitioners.
- Critical consumers of research.
- Brokers of knowledge translation.
- Capable and confident researchers.
- Generators new knowledge through the scholarship of discovery, integration, and application.
- Innovators and entrepreneurial thinkers in development and delivery of healthcare.
- Future leaders for and of the profession.
- Advocates for their patients and the health care system.
- Emotionally and culturally intelligent individuals & physiotherapists.
- Individuals with mindsets that embrace the wider influences on physiotherapy.
- Individuals willing and able to shape the future of the profession and healthcare.