As the academic rigor of APTA’s scientific journal increased over the years, non-scientific topics that focused more on news of the profession were inevitably displaced. The existing Progress Report had been created in the early 1970s to cover news and ongoing topics of national and component business, and it had continued to thrive in the 1980s. But other gaps in coverage widened, leading to the launch of P.T. Bulletin, a national weekly, in 1986. The Bulletin (published commercially but APTA reviewed and branded) proved invaluable in its ability to provide late-breaking reports of legislative initiatives at the state and national level, and it became the prime billboard for professional recruitment ads. Ten years after its charter issue, nearly 110,000 readers inside and outside the association were on the Bulletin’s mailing list.
Still lacking, however, was a general magazine with hands-on practice advice to meet the continuing education needs and interests of practitioner members. To fill this niche, Clinical Management in Physical Therapy was introduced as a quarterly in 1980. It lasted a dozen years and was then merged in January 1993 with Progress Report to become the first edition of APTA’s monthly PT—Magazine of Physical Therapy. The magazine was a vigorous and colorful addition to APTA’s periodicals lineup, with many of the best features of its predecessors plus distinctive qualities of its own.