After nearly 30 years working as a physical therapist, Julie Monie was looking for a way to broaden her perspective and brighten her career.

“I am at a stage in my life when I wanted to pursue further education,” the Barrington woman said. But with a fulltime physical therapy career with a suburban hospital and a home life caring for two children, going back to school full time was out of the question.

Then at a professional conference Monie, 52, said she learned of Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science’s then-new Master of Science in Women’s Health program. The interprofessional program offers online classes aimed at current health professionals and health professional students in the clinical phase of their training.

For Monie, who finds that more than 50 percent of her existing physical therapy patients are women, the program seemed a perfect fit. She enrolled in the university and began the program in 2005.

“Women’s health is a growing area within physical therapy, with issues like treating female athletes or working with osteoporosis. As the area of women’s health is growing, the hospital I work with is looking for new ways to meet those needs. This was an opportunity for me to grow professionally.”

Monie will be among the first students expected to graduate from the RFUMS program in July 2008. It will be the inaugural graduating class of a program the university hopes will continue to grow, with an aim of graduating 25 graduate students each year.

Susan Tappert, PT, DPT, chair of the university’s Interprofessional Healthcare studies Department, said the program was developed at the behest of Ruth M. Rothstein, chair of the RFUMS board of trustees, a longtime advocate of women’s health programs.

In 1993, the National Institute for Health implemented a policy requiring that women be included in medical trials, responding to worries that most studies on diet, medications and diseased focused on male patients. Despite the shift toward inclusion of women’s health in medical research, there are few professional programs focused on women’s health issues.

Rosalind Franklin University’s goal was to create an interprofessional program that offered both a master of science and certificate program that would combine the college’s interest in promoting a team approach among health care professionals with a focus on health issues unique to women, including the impact of nutrition, exercise and pathophysiology on women’s health.

Key to the program was opening it up to all types of health professionals and to making a team approach to patient care a lynchpin of its program philosophy.

The program offers a master of science degree completion in seven quarters with two courses per quarter, or a certificate program completion in four quarters with one course per quarter.

Current students include physical therapists, a dietician, nurse and medical students.

Associate professor Sarah Garber said the program was designed to be flexible, and accessible to people already working full-time in their fields.

“These are mature learners, adults who are willing to take responsibility and are serious about their careers,” Garber said.“All of them are people with full lives and they have to figure out, and they are good at figuring out, how to fit their class work in.”