Sports Medicine- is non surgery route posssible?

[ZainZ]

I was wondering if there was a 'medical' way to get into sports medicine- another words, without doing a surgery residency.
Is Orthopedics the only way to go?
Is there a subspecialty for sports medicine that does not involve surgery residency?

Thanks!

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[Emergency!]

I was wondering if there was a 'medical' way to get into sports medicine- another words, without doing a surgery residency.
Is Orthopedics the only way to go?
Is there a subspecialty for sports medicine that does not involve surgery residency?

According to "Iserson's Getting Into a Residency":

"Sports Medicine fellowships are available under the auspices of Emergency Medicine, Family Practice, Internal Medicine, and Pediatrics. This specialty is sometimes called (by NRMP as well as others) 'Primary Care Sports medicine' to distinguish it from Orthopedic Surgery's Sports Medicine subspecialty.

. . . Orthopedic Sports Medicine is a subspecialty of Orthopedic Surgery.

. . . Training is one year after the intial residency."

The info is on page 97 & 98 of the most recent edition. Most medical school libraries should have a reference copy available to browse through.

Amy

 

[little_late_MD]

What is it that you are looking to do in the sports arena: Team Doctor, trainer, nutritionist?

 

[ZainZ]

What is it that you are looking to do in the sports arena: Team Doctor, trainer, nutritionist?

Team doctor would be great, possibly paired with seeing sports injuries in an office setting/private practice.

What acitvivites, shadowing, ect. would one want to do during med school to get experience with the field?
Should I focus on getting into a good internal med. program and go from there?

 

[orientedtoself]

FM is the way to go for a medical Sports Medicine fellowship. There are 80 Family Medicine Sports Medicine fellowship programs, and only two in Internal Medicine.

FREIDA website
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/2997.html

 

[trudub]

Out of curiosity, why would one see a non-surgical sports medicine doc. If you ended up needing surgery, then you would have to be referred. It seems like the ability of a surgical sports medicine doc to treat patients medically and surgically gives them a big one up. I guess I am wondering how successful non-surgical sports med docs are in practice?

 

[skypilot]

FP accepts challenge as NFL head team physician:

http://www.aafp.org/fpr/20011000/7.html

 

[kingcer0x]

Rehab Medicine? Thats my suggestion.

 

[DOctorJay]

I agree with the above post, if you want non-surgical sports med a PM&R route would be best. You would have much greater understanding of the musculoskeletal system from this route of training which would be built upon during fellowship as opposed to treating all the family practice stuff and then trying to do sports (hypertension, diabetes, common colds aren't good practice for MOST issues in sports med).

The non-surgical route makes you a good candidate if you want to work in an Ortho group. You see the pts and kind of triage and the ones who need surgery get directly referred in house. A lot of ortho groups now have 1 or 2 non-surgical sports docs on staff.

-J

 

[ZainZ]

I agree with the above post, if you want non-surgical sports med a PM&R route would be best. You would have much greater understanding of the musculoskeletal system from this route of training which would be built upon during fellowship as opposed to treating all the family practice stuff and then trying to do sports (hypertension, diabetes, common colds aren't good practice for MOST issues in sports med).

The non-surgical route makes you a good candidate if you want to work in an Ortho group. You see the pts and kind of triage and the ones who need surgery get directly referred in house. A lot of ortho groups now have 1 or 2 non-surgical sports docs on staff.

-J

But PM&R doesn't have a Subspecialty/fellowship in Sports Medicine like FM, EM, etc. so how would you focus on getting sports oriented training?

 

[Taus]

But PM&R doesn't have a Subspecialty/fellowship in Sports Medicine like FM, EM, etc. so how would you focus on getting sports oriented training?

Actually, to the best of my knowledge....there are Sports Medicine/MSK (Musculoskeletal) fellowships available through PM&R, but they do not culminate in a formal caq certificate. They are however useful for obtaining the necessary extra training/experience/etc needed to work in that type of setting. If you want some more concrete info on this topic, check out the PM&R forum at the bottom of the main page.

 

[Taus]

But PM&R doesn't have a Subspecialty/fellowship in Sports Medicine like FM, EM, etc. so how would you focus on getting sports oriented training?

Actually, to the best of my knowledge....there are Sports Medicine/MSK (Musculoskeletal) fellowships available through PM&R, but they do not culminate in a formal caq certificate. They are however useful for obtaining the necessary extra training/experience/etc needed to work in that type of setting. If you want some more concrete info on this topic, check out the PM&R forum at the bottom of the main page.