ABSTRACT
As a group, the allied health professions are relatively young but growing fields. Each is on an evolutionary path moving from clinical specialties that are concerned solely with providing specialized services to physicians or dentists, to more autonomous providers of health care. The typical pattern of this evolution includes a number of intermediate stages, each requiring increased education and a focus on developing a body of knowledge specific to each discipline, eventually leading to professional status. Prior to 1960, the primary method of preparing allied health professionals was on-the-job training. There were fewer than fifteen colleges of allied health in the country. 1 With increased federal money in the late 1960s and 1970s, a sharp increase in the number of programs occurred. Some of these programs were located at community colleges, but many others were housed in university settings, either as departments in medical schools, or as freestanding schools of allied health. Those located in large universities were faced with certain changes in expectations for the programs and the faculty teaching in them. As members of the university community, faculty were required to adapt the culture of academe, which is steeped in requirements for scholarship and research. This transition has been a difficult one.
