Sports Medicine? Working for olympics?

[bobthesun]

i am very interested in sports medicine and I know roughly the route to become a sports team physician.

M question is how does one work for the olympics? not just as a team physician but the olympic village medical volunteer, etc. I want to work/volunteer for the olympics it has been a life long dream. How would one go about doing this. Maybe working in the village clinic, experiencing the atmosphere, etc/

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[PMR 4 MSK]

Through networking and contacts. Find someone who knows someone who does it and contact them.

My understanding is you pay your own way and donate your services.

 

[Ludicolo]

i am very interested in sports medicine and I know roughly the route to become a sports team physician.

M question is how does one work for the olympics? not just as a team physician but the olympic village medical volunteer, etc. I want to work/volunteer for the olympics it has been a life long dream. How would one go about doing this. Maybe working in the village clinic, experiencing the atmosphere, etc/

It is my understanding that the application process to be a USOC physician volunteer is quite competitive and selective. You would be taking care of elite level athletes, so you better bring elite level skills.

I know that the Mayo Sports physiatrists are very involved with the USOC. Ed Laskowski was an Olympic Village physician during the Salt Lake City games. I believe that Jonathan Finnoff is a team physician for the US ski team.

 

[lobelsteve]

Easier route is to win at least one gold medal in an Olympics and then go to medical school. This way you bring in a media angle and increase your chances several fold. Unless the medal is in curling.

 

[Llenroc]

Every ex-jock nowadays has dreams of becoming a sports medicine doctor, only seeing patients under 35, hanging out with Kobe Bryant on the weekends, etc. The reality of sports medicine practice in America is a little different.

From what I've seen, very few people are able to get into a practice situation with considerable sports medicine. Most of the Family Medicine/Sports Medicine doctors out there do mostly primary care, with a limited component of actual musculoskeletal medicine. A smaller subset of that is "sports medicine". Anybody who tells you different is lying to you.

One PM&R sports medicine guy who was in a practice with general PM&R docs, and was the official EMG provider for a pro-hockey team said in 5 years he got 1 referral to do an EMG.

This is a best case scenario: I worked in a clinic that was the official provider for 3 of the major league teams in a city. The only one that actually went to the games was the head Orthopedic Surgeon. Rarely, the non-surgeons would provide game coverage. The game coverage component apparently paid quite poorly, isn't worth the advertising benefits, and the surgeons who do it, do so out of personal interest. The teams always prefer the surgeon to the Family Medicine or PM&R doctors. The clinic was run by Family Medicine folks, who did the work up for the surgeons. The surgeons then rounded on the ones who failed surgical management or who had obvious surgical issues. Even in this clinic, maybe 1/3 of the patients were actual "sports medicine" cases. The rest were people with knee arthritis, shoulder impingement, ankle sprain, and back pain. If a pro-athlete came in (which was rare), they were seen by the surgeon alone most of the time.

 

[PMR 4 MSK]

When our hockey team went from UHL to NHL minor league, I could no longer cover games, only an orthopedic surgeon. Still, even from covering games, I very rarely got the consults - they went to ortho, as most were fractures, and the back injuries all went to the chiros who were in the locker room before, during and after games.

You have to work very hard and attend a lot of games to get professional athlete referrals. You'll do better with college and high school most likely, but bigger colleges have their own MD staff. At most, ortho rules the roost and non-ortho gets the scraps.

 

[Tenacious DO]

Prior to my ventures back to medical school, I worked as a physical therapist in a fitness/sports med setting. I teamed up w/ an established personal trainer that granted me access to elite high school, college and professional athletes. In exchange, I offered onsite physical therapy services and some added credibility to his sports performance training program. It was fun and a great learning experience. From my years working in this setting I have learned the following:
-Elite athletes are looking for any advantage they can possibly get…Even if that is just a perceived advantage. I am not talking about performance enhancing drugs, but more so that if they are working w/ you, then you are the best & brightest in your field…You offer something unique…You are the Advantage. This is where I believe PM&R can emphasize the skilled approach to non-surgical medical management.
-Your reputation with OTHER athletes is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING…Every athlete wants to know that you have succeeded w/ other similar athletes.
-Like anyone, if you are getting something for free, then you tend to devalue it. It is only when you pay out of your own pocket that a service has true perceived value. Hence, the recommendations I gave were often adhered to more than from the team issued physician/trainer. Sports performances enhancement is much different from being a team doc/trainer.
-High school athletes do not have much money to pay for services & professional athletes often feel they should not have to pay for your services – They play the advertizing card all the time.
-Those that are truly committed to Sports Medicine are the ones that are committed to developing & maintaining relationships w/ the athlete, family, coach & agent.
-It has been said many times, but Sports Medicine is a Hobby – it will not pay your bills…Heck, James Andrews doesn’t even see athletes full-time.
-I became much happier and more successful w/ my practice when I expanded my definition of what was meant by Sports Medicine. If you use your body for an activity that you enjoy – That is Sports Medicine. You can fill your schedule helping 42 year-old businessmen that can only play 2 games of basketball, but wants to play 4. Even the work comp cases where the patient is truly committed to returning to a manual labor job is Sports Medicine. Give these patients the same level of customer service that you would a pro athlete and your reputation should flourish. I recommend that you not limit your view to only those w/ scholarships or pro-contracts.

Just some thoughts while I am sitting at home sick. Time for more green tea & honey.

 

[PMR 4 MSK]

-Like anyone, if you are getting something for free, then you tend to devalue it. It is only when you pay out of your own pocket that a service has true perceived value. Hence, the recommendations I gave were often adhered to more than from the team issued physician/trainer. Sports performances enhancement is much different from being a team doc/trainer.

This is so very true in sports med.

I've done free Saturday morning football clinics, where any athlete injured Friday night could come in and get evaluated. Most was BS stuff, bumps and bruises, and we would get about 1/10 to come to the office. Most left with a RICE recommendation. We would also get people coming in with coughs and colds that the FPs guys would eval. Once we had a case of pink eye.

Pro sports want you to either give services for free, or maybe for a billboard at the arena. Many of the pro athletes see you as their personal servant. They don't pay for it. While I was examining one hockey player, I overheard another telling the guy I had just seen "No, you go back in there and tell him he works for you and he will give you a prescription." I laughed at him. SDN would censor what I told him if I typed it here.

The glory of sports med is in getting the weekend warrior back into his sport/hobby. He's the only one who will pay you for your time.

 

[melancholy]

from a PM&R standpoint, there are opportunities to volunteer to cover various events and gain experience and contacts. Additionally, sports fellowships may provide more organized exposure to sporting events at the high school, college, amateur, and sometimes professional level. However as the folks above have alluded to, developing contacts is important.

As a pseudo-active person, I really enjoy talking to patients about their favorite activities (even moreso if I have any familiarity with it) and what can be done to help get them back in the swing of things. Gotta love it..

 

[RUOkie]

The glory of sports med is in getting the weekend warrior back into his sport/hobby. He's the only one who will pay you for your time.

The extent of my sports medicine is exactly that. No worries about PED's (and you are fooling yourself if you don't think that is a problem in competitive athletics) or secondary gain.

 

[RUOkie]

worries about PED's (and you are fooling yourself if you don't think that is a problem in competitive athletics) .

in that vein, I was talking to a group of people in a chat room last night (a sport that I actively participate in), and one member was in a dilemma about reporting a teammate who he knew was taking one of the new designer anabolic steroids (which are very difficult to detect). This is an amateur athlete who has no chance of ever becoming elite.

 

[MedBronc23]

Rehabilitative Sports Medicine/Non-surgical MSK is my preferred area of interest.....i prefer not to use the word orthopedics since msk is so much more than bones. I digress

People ask me all the time why I chose PM&R over Ortho of FP if I wanted to do sports. My answer is simple....I chose PM&R because I think we are the best at NeuroMusculoskeletal of any other speciality

Our work with TBI helps us deal with concussions in sports, SCI/spine knowledge definitely aids us in treating amateur athletes/weekend warriors/semi and pro athletes with spine injuries/most of us do a pre-lim in medicine or transitional year so we know how to take care of common issues just like FP (not trying to be smug but I know more about primary care in my intern year of internal medicien (minus ob/gyn) than most of the PGY-3s in FP at my same hospital...frankly its sad...again I digress, also we learn the peripheral and central nervous system top to bottom, and I think we understand kinesiology, gait, mobility, and function better than any speciality. I was a former jock (college and hs) so I am no different than most people intersted in sports. I think it comes down to what do you want to learn about on your way to doing sports medicine.

Do you want to take care of vaginal itches, babies, kids with colds and flus, ect. for 3+ years as an FP resident

Do you want to spend the first 1-3 years of your training being the general surgery scut monkey and doing nothing reltated to ortho until you are in your 4-5 year.

Or do you want to do stuff like sci, tbi, msk disorders of all ages, and pain which all will help you be a better sports med doc....

All ortho knows how to do is give people percocet and vicodin and hammer out new joints. they are great at what they do. Most of them get stuck to doing one joint even if they are in sports med. That was not for me. I wanted to take care of it all. do procedures. not cut. not be stuck in the or. ect.

PM&R just makes sense. And their are many PM&R sports guys that do high level sports in this Country...Stu Willick, Jay Smith & John Finnoff, Ect. to name a few.

It is totally possible to achieve your dreams in sports in PM&R if you work hard enough and make good connections

 

[Gauss]

a little fiery today aren't we?