NFL team physician?

[fullefect1]

Does anyone have any info on NFL, or NCAA d1 football doctor? Most of them seem to be orthopedic surgeons, but how difficult is it to earn a spot like this? This would be my ideal dream job. Do they get paid more then usuall ortho surgeons?

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[jakstat33]

the groups that treat pro teams must bid huge sums of money (millions if you're talking about a pro team like the Yankees, Diamondbacks, etc) to get a contract with the team-- but obiviously it is worth it for them to do so in the long run. the prestige of representing a pro team brings in endless #'s of patients, some VIP ones that pay big $. however, it wouldn't make sense for a small group to dish out such unconscionable amounts of money... i do not know how the college teams work. at my school, the UMC/student health docs treat our teams.

 

[@70mphC2005--->]

Someone has to be very rich if they want to be a coach of a professional, olympic, or even some college teams. It's not so much a matter of how good you are, but how many millions your willing to give to the professional team to be there.

You don't have to be an orthopod to be a team coach, in fact, many are family practice physicians or sports medicine docs (with alot of dough).

 

[ortho2003]

not all pro team physicians pay to do it, but some do pay extraordinary ammounts to do it and consider it advertising investments. For those that don't pay, and those that do, you have to make sure the malpractice is set up accordingly. Being sued by someone with the potential to make $60 mill in a career is much more costly than someone that can make $1-2 mill in a career. For this reason, many pro teams are now going uncovered and many team physicians are refusing service unless the team covers malpractice under a separate policy for the athletes.

 

[5oProlene]

Sounds like more of a headache than it's really worth.

 

[kito]

I'm sure that this is an anomaly, but Stuart Hershon has been the team physician for the Yankees since the 1960s. From watching the Yankee games he seems to travel with the team wherever they go, and he covers the entire the team all by himself. I'm sure he refers players to specialists when necessary but he doesn't seem to be part of a large practice or anything. I think he's on the clinical faculty at NYP though.

 

[Kalel]

Our school provides health care services for the Baltimore Ravens for a fee (we pay them to see them as patients for advertising purposes). We also provide care for the Maryland Terps, and I think that we provide that care for free in exchange for advertising purposes as well. Besides orthopedists, one of the chief team physicians is actually an FP who has completed a sports medicine fellowship. Pay is above avg to avg for surgeons who are sports physicians who see amaeteur athletes. They are a "high risk" population though, because as a previous users indicated, if something goes wrong in the OR or if you allow your patients to continue playing sports when they shouldn't be (which happens quite often in sports medicine), the loss of income and pain and suffering associated with an injury in a young, otherwise healthy individual can lead to very large malpractice settlements.

 

[fullefect1]

wow, this is much different from what I thought. I was thinking that the team would hire an individual physician to be their personal doctor, but I guess I was completely wrong. There goes my dream, I probably wouldn't want to deal with those types of hassles.

 

[oceandoc]

If you're really interested and want to know what it's like, you should see if you can set up an elective rotation with a pro team. One of our 4th years recently did a rotation with the Patriots' medical staff, which is provided to them by Harvard. She had no problem setting it up and had a great time, although she wasn't allowed to be on the sidelines at the games because Belichick has this thing against women being on the sidelines, apparently. She totally inspired me...I'm going to try very hard to get a rotation with the red sox (of course!) when I'm a fourth year.

 

[Sharkfan]

Wow, that sounds so cool. How do you go about doing that? I mean, who should you contact?

 

[omar06]

Although I'm still completing undergrad, I had the opportunity to 'shadow' the team physician of the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA. This was an awesome experience for myself, and I enjoyed every bit of it. I found out about it through the internet...while searching for team doctors of professional sports teams. I'd suggest searching under yahoo or google for "team doctor of ____" for whatever you may be interested in. I also networked with this internship, and got to meet the team doc of the dallas cowboys, along with meeting the mavs players and attending games.

good luck and pm me if you need more info

omar06