Sports medicine vs Orthopedic Surgeon

[bbruins99]

So I have been interested in the two fields ever since I started playing sports. Well, more specifically when I tore my ACL and basically everything in my shoulder. I love looking at the MRIs trying to figure out what is wrong and reading up on different cases. The only thing that deters me is that I am really not into surgery. I could watch it no problem, but performing any surgeries would be a no go for me. Is sports medicine basically orthopedics without surgery? Is there a field that is all orthopedics without any sort of surgery?

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[BombsAway]

look into PM&R as well

 

[Swan Ronson]

the PM&R comment is a great one. very interesting field with a lot of the work concentrated in non-op spine treatments. not a clairvoyant, but i don't think its unreasonable to imagine that field becoming more popular as more equivocal outcomes with spine procedures vs. non-op treatment roll out.

if you're not interested in performing surgery at all, you could certainly do the primary care sports med route. lots of ultrasound work, biologics, injections -- that type of thing. i believe most fellowships will accept EM, IM, family med, and peds residency prior to the fellowship. don't quote me on it, though.

 

[DrBowtie]

Musculoskeletal Radiologist

 

[Dandine]

@Swan Ronson You are correct. @bbruins99 Here's some info from the AMSSM. You do any primary care residency (this includes PMR as well) then do a fellowship in sports med.
https://www.amssm.org/Content/pdf files/Students-CareerforYou-Broch.pdf

 

[Levo]

the PM&R comment is a great one. very interesting field with a lot of the work concentrated in non-op spine treatments. not a clairvoyant, but i don't think its unreasonable to imagine that field becoming more popular as more equivocal outcomes with spine procedures vs. non-op treatment roll out.

if you're not interested in performing surgery at all, you could certainly do the primary care sports med route. lots of ultrasound work, biologics, injections -- that type of thing. i believe most fellowships will accept EM, IM, family med, and peds residency prior to the fellowship. don't quote me on it, though.

Agreed with everyone that PM&R sounds like the perfect choice. You essentially do orthopedics without ever going to the OR. You do learn other things in PM&R residency like how to take care of patients after a stroke, but you could definitely focus on musculoskeletal injuries in your practice. If you're not into the OR but do like procedures, you're able to do a fellowship in interventional pain after PM&R, which trains you in image guided joint injections and nerve ablations, often-times for sports injuries. The way things are going now, interventional pain docs may be the ones putting in percutaneous spine spacers, which preliminary studies show to be non-inferior in terms of quality of life compared to open surgery for patients with spinal stenosis. Overall, sounds like a great field!

One statement I would disagree with is primary care sports med trained doctors doing biologics. That's the domain of rheumatology.

 

[Dr. Jan Itor]

Check out episode 13 of the podcast Specialty Stories about PM&R.


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[mw18]

You pretty much perfectly described PM&R, OP. At least in my little exposure.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Sports med is pretty cool if you are into non-surgical orthopedics. I just saw mine the other day for an old sports injury and we ended up chatting for a lot of the appointment about his day to day, types of cases, types of patients, etc. It out the field on my long list of fields to check out.