Critics in the 1990s questioned whether the rigor of the physical therapy curriculum and the scope of practice warranted the conferral of a professional degree similar to that characteristic of medicine, dentistry, or nursing. Proponents countered that the existing curricula are "victims of 'curricular inflation'." Rothstein and Moffat noted, the previous master's and even baccalaureate curricula rivaled those of most other professional doctorate programs, and these curricula often required more than the typical 72 credits mandated for a doctoral degree. The 2000 Fact Sheet from APTA reported that the mean number of credits required for the professional phase of the typical baccalaureate program was 83.0 credits and that the typical master's degree program required 95.5 credits. As of 2009 the typical number of prerequisite credits was 114.2 and the total number of professional credits was 116.5 for a total of 230.7 credit hours. Additional credit hours may also be earned in residency and fellowship. Threlkeld et al. suggested that the scope of existing physical therapy curricula already (in 1999) matched that of a professional doctorate, further submitting that students of a well-defined DPT program "will have earned the right to be recognized by the doctoral title".