As an athletic trainer, you're focused on doing everything you can to improve your athletes' performance.
But, are you doing the most you can to improve your own performance?
Athletic trainers face challenges unlike any other health care professional, from daily patient scheduling to administration duties, from public perception to clinical expectations, from work to life balance. In this section you'll find resources, publications, and research-as well as advice and interviews from industry leaders, to help you remain at the top of your game, so you can keep your athletes at the top of theirs.
Despite rules designed to ensure proper medical care for student athletes by limiting the influence of coaches on the hiring and firing of sports medicine personnel, medical independence remains a concern. Murphy Grant, Senior Associate Athletic Director and Athletics Health Care Administrator at Wake Forest University, and Executive Chair of the Intercollegiate Council for Sports Medicine (ICSM), discusses the evolution of the medical model and its role in helping ATs maintain medical independence.
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If you were looking to designate a “Dean of Athletic Trainers,” Rod Walters would definitely fit the bill. Dr. Walters’ long career in athletic training began when he was a high school sophomore and his career included stops at Lenoir-Rhyne College, Appalachian State, and the University of South Carolina, where he was elevated to the position of Assistant Athletic Director for Sports Medicine.
Not every high school in the U.S. has a single athletic trainer. Two ATs at a high school is rare. So imagine how remarkable it is for Sheila Gordon, the head trainer at White Knoll High School in Lexington, S.C., to lead a squad of five ATs serving the school's 36 sports teams.
Murphy Grant's passion for athletic training goes beyond the day-to-day of preparation, treatment, and rehabilitation of student athletes as Head Football Trainer and Associate Athletic Director of Sports Medicine at the University of Kansas.
Balancing a personal life with a career as an athletic trainer (AT) at the Division I school isn't easy, but Scott Oliaro, head athletic trainer and associate director of sports medicine at the University of North Carolina (UNC), has found a way—but it's not always easy!
The atypical work schedule of an athletic trainer (AT) at the secondary school or collegiate level can present many opportunities that traditional 9-to-5ers don't have.