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Studies & Degrees in Therapeutics

Therapeutics is the branch of medicine concerned with the treatment of disease, as the School of Medicine of Trinity College Dublin puts it. In medical and pharmacy schools the word is usually paired with pharmacology: according to University College Cork (UCC), therapeutics in pharmacology refers to the use of drugs and the method of their administration in the treatment of disease.

In a wider sense, the subject also covers the therapy professions, which treat patients without drugs or surgery: physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, recreational therapy and the psychological therapies. The schools listed under this subject on SpainExchange belong to both groups, so the first step is to decide which kind of training you are looking for.

Pharmacology and therapeutics

Therapeutics in the strict sense is rarely a degree of its own. It is taught inside degrees in medicine, pharmacy, dentistry and nursing, by departments of pharmacology and therapeutics. UCC's department, for example, teaches pharmacology, toxicology, clinical pharmacology and therapeutics to students of medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy and the basic sciences, and lists an intercalated BSc (Hons) in Pharmacology among its programmes. Trinity College Dublin's Discipline of Pharmacology and Therapeutics dates from 1960. Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria, which is not among the 18 schools listed here, has a Department of Medical Pharmacology and Therapeutics. Students learn how drugs act on the body, how doses are chosen, how medicines interact and how to prescribe safely. Graduates who want to go deeper usually take a research master's degree or a PhD in a pharmacology department.

The therapy professions: qualifications and levels

  • Spain. Physiotherapist (fisioterapeuta) and occupational therapist (terapeuta ocupacional) are regulated professions. Orders CIN/2135/2008 and CIN/729/2009 require an official bachelor's degree (grado) of 240 ECTS credits for each.
  • United States: occupational therapy. Occupational therapists typically need a master's degree in occupational therapy, and all states require a licence, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
  • United States: physical therapy. New physical therapists need a Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) degree. DPT programmes typically last 3 years after a bachelor's degree.
  • United States: speech-language pathology. At least a master's degree in speech-language pathology is the usual requirement.
  • United States: recreational therapy. Recreational therapists typically need a bachelor's degree, and many employers require certification. SUNY Cortland describes its Therapeutic Recreation major as training to help individuals with illnesses, disabilities and other limitations achieve their goals through recreation.
  • Continuing training. Qualified professionals take shorter postgraduate courses. In Madrid, the psychology and psychiatry centre Cinteco runs courses for professionals, such as a course on couples therapy, and the Fundación Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre (ICH) offers a Máster de Formación Permanente en Patología de la Voz y Voz Profesional. Ask each centre what recognition the qualification has.

Where to study

SpainExchange lists 18 active schools for therapeutics. The United States has 7, Spain 3, Ireland and Canada 2 each, and the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Russia and Venezuela 1 each.

The schools in the United States include Kean University, Illinois State University, Temple University, SUNY Cortland, the University of Southern Maine and Saint Louis University. In Ireland, the two schools are University College Cork and the University of Dublin, Trinity College. In Spain the list has the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca and the two Madrid centres named above. Programmes change, so check on each school's own site which therapy or pharmacology programme it offers now.

Therapy degrees include supervised clinical placements with patients, so the language of the country matters as much as the language of the classroom. The professions are regulated or licensed in most countries. Students who plan to work somewhere other than where they study should check how the qualification is recognised there before they enrol.

Careers

Therapists work in hospitals, rehabilitation centres, private practices, schools, nursing homes and home care. Graduates in pharmacology and therapeutics work in the pharmaceutical industry, clinical research, drug regulation and universities.

For the United States, the BLS publishes these figures for 2025 and its projections for 2025 to 2035:

  • physical therapists: 283,700 jobs, projected growth 12 percent
  • speech-language pathologists: 193,400 jobs, projected growth 17 percent
  • occupational therapists: 169,600 jobs, projected growth 15 percent
  • recreational therapists: 15,600 jobs, projected growth 5 percent

No comparable official figures for Spain were found for this page.

Frequently asked questions

Is therapeutics a degree on its own?

Rarely. It is normally a subject within medicine, pharmacy, dentistry or nursing, taught together with pharmacology. Degrees that carry their own name are those of the therapy professions, such as physiotherapy or occupational therapy.

What is the difference between pharmacology and therapeutics?

Pharmacology studies drugs and their effects on living organisms. Therapeutics is concerned with the treatment of disease, and in pharmacology it refers to how drugs are used and administered to treat patients.

How long are physiotherapy and occupational therapy degrees in Spain?

Both are official bachelor's degrees of 240 ECTS credits, normally four academic years.

Do therapists need a licence in the United States?

According to the BLS, all states require occupational therapists and physical therapists to be licensed. For recreational therapists, many employers require certification.