how does one get into Sports Medicine?

[DrMattOglesby]

how many different residencies allow one to pursue a fellowship in sports medicine?
so far, I have heard of these residencies offering sports med:

1) Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
2) Family Medicine
3) Pediatrics
4) Emergency Medicine
5) Internal Medicine
5) Orthopedic Surgery

My questions are:

• Can you enter a sports med fellowship off of other residency programs?
• Do different fellowships require different residencies to be completed? (ex: the sports med fellowship at XY University needs its applicants to have completed a residency in Family Practice)
• Do some of the fellowship programs require residency training from allopathic residencies?
• Will DO programs presumably give their students the advantage in such residencies where the subject is mostly musculoskeletal in nature?

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[Chocolate Bear]

Orthopaedic Surgery residency --> Orthopaedic Sports Medicine fellowship is the big money route, both literally and figuratively.

To answer your second question, for example, you can't enter an ortho sports med fellowship after completing a FP residency. The advanced training would be in surgical techniques and arthroscopy, which a recent FP grad would be completely clueless about.

 

[Chocolate Bear]

The different routes to enter "sports medicine" lead you to different paths. The main path begins in residency, and the fellowship gives you more advanced training, allowing you to better treat a certain subsection of patients that you could have seen, anyway. But in many cases, without the specialized fellowship, you would have referred said patients to a more highly trained specialist.

Ortho surgeons can repair ACL injuries. FPs can diagnose ACL injuries. Physiatrists can prehab and rehab ACL injuries.

However, the Sports Medicine trained versions of the above are more proficient/accurate/up to date/etc. about doing so, because an ACL injury is heavily emphasized in Sports Medicine training. You could devote more of your practice to sports-specific cases if you have the proper training.

 

[DrMattOglesby]

but you know whats interesting--
I didnt find any sports med fellowships in the Osteo match program!? Does that mean you have to go to an ACGME (allopathic) approved residency to get into sports med?

Though, I did find a really interesting residency that combines peds and PM&R...not to mention a whole bunch more (ex: neuromuscular medicine/OMT & peds/child-psych/adolescent-psych).

 

[andexterouss]

I think "Sports Medicine" is a fancy term used by some PCP's to attract more business and beef up their resume. However, the job is quite mundane.
As CB pointed out, they can diagnose sports related injuries but treatment of these injuries are usually done by ortho docs. Simple hamstring and sprain can be treated by them but it also be done by a physiatrists, physical therapists, chiropractors etc. I'm not trying to belittle sport medicine but it's good to know what you are getting into.

If you are really interested in sports medicine, then I'd suggest you go Ortho where you have the unlimited ability to diagnose AND treat any sports related injury.

 

[Chocolate Bear]

Add EM and IM to your list of residencies that can lead to some sort of sports medicine fellowship. Source.

 

[stonewall22]

but you know whats interesting--
I didnt find any sports med fellowships in the Osteo match program!? Does that mean you have to go to an ACGME (allopathic) approved residency to get into sports med?

Though, I did find a really interesting residency that combines peds and PM&R...not to mention a whole bunch more (ex: neuromuscular medicine/OMT & peds/child-psych/adolescent-psych).

There are several...

http://opportunities.osteopathic.or...94ADB08A3DE82&jsessionid=e43072a87df05403e233

From the sports medicine people I've talked to, a PCP sports medicine basically does non-surgical orthopaedics. Often they work with a group of orthopaedic surgeons and handle pre/post op care, and handle non surgical problems. Often these are the people you see run onto the field during a football game. Lastly, I've heard, that depending on location, you can assist in surgeries.

 

[DrMattOglesby]

There are several...

http://opportunities.osteopathic.or...94ADB08A3DE82&jsessionid=e43072a87df05403e233

From the sports medicine people I've talked to, a PCP sports medicine basically does non-surgical orthopaedics. Often they work with a group of orthopaedic surgeons and handle pre/post op care, and handle non surgical problems. Often these are the people you see run onto the field during a football game. Lastly, I've heard, that depending on location, you can assist in surgeries.

whoa...those are straight up residencies in Sports Med????? I was under the impression that Sports Medicine was a sub-specialty, to be pursued after any of the aforementioned residencies we found earlier.

 

[Chocolate Bear]

but you know whats interesting--
I didnt find any sports med fellowships in the Osteo match program!? Does that mean you have to go to an ACGME (allopathic) approved residency to get into sports med?

From the American Osteopathic Board of Orthopaedic Surgeons (DO):

Subspecialty Certification

Certification by the AOBOS is for general Orthopedic Surgery ONLY. No subspecialty "certification" exists at this time.

A Certificate of Added Qualifications (CAQ) is available in Hand Surgery via a separate examination. Requirements and applications are available on our HandCAQ page. This is not available for any other subspecialties.

From The American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (MD):

Who can practice orthopaedic sports medicine?

Any ACGME residency trained orthopaedist can practice orthopaedic sports medicine

I think the answer to your question is YES, if you're talking about orthopaedic sports med. DOs have the American Osteopathic Academy of Sports Medicine, which offers other avenues into sports medicine. Also, I think other ACGME sports med fellowships are open to DOs, but I haven't looked into it.

 

[stonewall22]

whoa...those are straight up residencies in Sports Med????? I was under the impression that Sports Medicine was a sub-specialty, to be pursued after any of the aforementioned residencies we found earlier.

No, it is a PCP fellowship...as is the case with ACGME sports medicine. There are no sports medicine residencies, all are fellowships.

 

[JaggerPlate]

Orthopaedic Surgery residency --> Orthopaedic Sports Medicine fellowship is the big money route, both literally and figuratively.

To answer your second question, for example, you can't enter an ortho sports med fellowship after completing a FP residency. The advanced training would be in surgical techniques and arthroscopy, which a recent FP grad would be completely clueless about.

+1. I was also going to state that ortho -> sports med would probably be the best way to go all around.

 

[RySerr21]

can you do a 4th year rotation in ortho-sports med? Or at a general sports med fellowship for non-surgeons?

 

[Chocolate Bear]

can you do a 4th year rotation in ortho-sports med? Or at a general sports med fellowship for non-surgeons?

Yes. Either under surgical subspecialty rotations for ortho sports med or medicine subspecialty rotations for general sports med.

Of course, you could always use one of your free rotation spots if those two rotations don't fit in, elsewhere.

 

[pato7]

I was just about to make a thread about this subject. I'm glad I searched it or ya'll would have flamed the hell out of me I've always thought about sports medicine as being a more advanced athletic training/rehabilitation type of thing, but I know now that those things are done by physical therapists and athletic trainers. So in terms of treating a patient, is sports medicine just diagnosing injuries if you're not doing surgery? I never thought about becoming a surgeon before, but I'm still open to the idea.

 

[Chocolate Bear]

I was just about to make a thread about this subject. I'm glad I searched it or ya'll would have flamed the hell out of me I've always thought about sports medicine as being a more advanced athletic training/rehabilitation type of thing, but I know now that those things are done by physical therapists and athletic trainers. So in terms of treating a patient, is sports medicine just diagnosing injuries if you're not doing surgery? I never thought about becoming a surgeon before, but I'm still open to the idea.

Well, sports medicine consists of both diagnosis and treatment. As far as treatment goes, the big one is surgical. If you're not doing that, physiatrists (PM&R docs) use other methods to treat, and OMM specialists could have a nice niche in non-surgical sports medicine treatments, as well.

 

[pato7]

I see. Thanks for the response. I love the dancing Turk BTW.

 

[mkmgal]

Maybe to clarify a few things:

There is surgical and nonsurgical sports medicine. If you want to go in to surgical sports medicine, then ortho is the way to go. If you are interested in nonsurgical (primary care) sports medicine, then family practice is the most common route, but other primary care fields can feed in to some fellowships, but this fellowship dependent. I'm applying for a primary care sports medicine fellowship so I feel a little more well versed with this option.

There are both DO and MD primary care sports medicine fellowships. There are excellent fellowships in both fields. I'm a DO and am applying to very competitive MD fellowships programs.

Primary care sports med docs function in many different roles: high school team docs, college (from Jr. College to Div-1) athletics, student health, Olympic to professional sports and in multi-specialty groups. I'm interested in practicing family medicine in a smaller community and hope to work with the local high school teams, a small junior college and cover other community sporting events.

Primary care fellowships focus on both ortho and nonortho issues during the fellowship year. Hopefully, you become very skilled with an ortho exam, probably more so than most orthopods. Primary Care sports docs can offer lots to patients, even though they don't practice surgery. The vast majority of orthopedic injuries are nonsurgical and can be confidently managed by physicians well versed in orthopedic injuries (how to treat and when to appropriately refer). Many fellowships now teach musculoskeletal ultrasound, various different injections (steroid, dry-needling, autologous blood and prolotherapy) which can be very beneficial for patients and help keep them from going under the knife. Also, OMT is becoming more and more appreciated and sought out. One MD program director (at one of the nation's top programs) told me, "Wow, we could use a DO. Do you use OMT?

Hope this clarify a few. Best of luck!

 

[scpod]

....Primary care fellowships focus on both ortho and nonortho issues during the fellowship year....

I'm really glad you brought that up because, like you mentioned, surgery is really a very small part of sports medicine. The cardiology and pulmonology aspects are very important to athletes in training. Nutrition plays a big role-- especially with all the supplements out there that people are taking. Female athletes in particular can have menstrual problems and other endocrine issues. Not to mention what happens to people training during pregnancy. There should be a big focus on preventative medicine as well. Most of this stuff just isn't handled by the surgeons.

 

[pato7]

I'm really glad you brought that up because, like you mentioned, surgery is really a very small part of sports medicine. The cardiology and pulmonology aspects are very important to athletes in training. Nutrition plays a big role-- especially with all the supplements out there that people are taking. Female athletes in particular can have menstrual problems and other endocrine issues. Not to mention what happens to people training during pregnancy. There should be a big focus on preventative medicine as well. Most of this stuff just isn't handled by the surgeons.

This sounds like exactly the type of thing I've wanted to do. It seems like you can do more preventative work in Sports Medicine than in other specialties.

 

[RySerr21]

This sounds like exactly the type of thing I've wanted to do. It seems like you can do more preventative work in Sports Medicine than in other specialties.

You could go in to Preventive Medicine (it's its own separate residency). It doesnt get more preventative than that.