Questions
Larry Birnbaum, PhD, FASEP, EPC
Department of Exercise Physiology
The College of St. Scholastica
Duluth, MN  55811

I would like to pose a series of questions for all exercise physiologists.  If you could acquire your dream job, what would it be?  Where would it be?  What is a reasonable salary for exercise physiologists with a bachelor’s degree?  With a master’s degree?  Right out of college?  With five years of experience?  What benefits would you consider to be at least decent?  Do you think continuing education is important?  If so, how would you prefer to receive that continuing education?  What about certification and licensure?  Are they important?  Do you think if you were certified or licensed you would have a better chance at getting that dream job and with a good salary?  Should exercise physiology programs be accredited?  If so, what organization should accredit them?  What standards should be established for accreditation?  For example, what curriculum content should be considered essential in all exercise physiology programs?  And who should make those decisions?

These are challenging questions for exercise physiologists.  The latter questions are particularly difficult because exercise physiology has not yet achieved full professional status.  Progress has been made over the past few years, but we do not yet have one accrediting agency that is universally recognized as the accrediting agency for exercise physiologists.  Nor do we have one certification agency universally recognized as the certifying agency for exercise physiologists.  The key phrase is “universally recognized.”  We do have accreditation and certification now, which was nonexistent just a few short years ago.  That is progress, but what is really necessary is for employers of exercise physiologists to recognize accreditation of academic programs and particularly certification of practitioners as being valid and essential for employment.  In other words, when employers insist that exercise physiologists be certified before they can be employed, we will have taken a major step forward.

This leads to two critical questions.  What organization should accredit academic programs?  What organization should certify exercise physiologists?  There are strong feelings about this in various academic circles, but the fact is that the American Society of Exercise Physiologists (ASEP) was the first organization to develop an accreditation arm and a certification body strictly for exercise physiology programs and exercise physiologists, respectively [1].  It is worth noting that ASEP was also the first organization to publish a Code of Ethics [2] and Standards of Practice [1].  So why isn’t ASEP universally recognized as the organization for accrediting academic programs and certifying clinicians?  That is another question for exercise physiologists to contemplate.  Let us not contemplate too long, though, because while we are contemplating, other health care professions continue to encroach upon our scope of practice.  Exercise physiologists who care about their careers should be advocating for legitimate accreditation of academic programs and certification of clinicians.  Thus, the last question I will pose is, ”Do you care about your future?”

References

1.  http://asep.org/services

2.  http://asep.org/organization/ethics