Overview
Doctors in Sports and Exercise Medicine mainly treat sport/exercise related injuries and specialise in supporting athletes. They take a holistic approach in patient care, putting in effort to understand each individual sport and how it affects the body of athletes. They also take on a holistic approach to medicine, treating injuries, and working to strengthen the individual to prevent future injuries. These doctors also provide their expertise and support to other fields in a multi-disciplinary team.
Training Pathway
The path to becoming a doctor in sports and exercise medicine looks something like this… (UK NHS)
· Complete a medical degree in Medical School
· Do a two year foundation programme
· Finish two years of core medical/ emergency medicine/ GP training
· Undertake a four year sports and exercise medicine training programme
What do they do?
As the name suggests, these doctors are largely involved in providing support to sportsmen and women by assisting them in max
imising their performance and reducing and treating their injuries. They provide accurate diagnoses for athletes who are injured, suggest treatment plans and implement rehabilitation programmes.
Within the sporting sector itself, these doctors promote high ethical standards by promoting public health policies for physical activity and liaising and supporting the work of sporting organisations in the promotion of healthy lifestyles and safety standards in sports.
These doctors also support those who are not athletes, making their clinical expertise available to other clinicians in a wider multi-disciplinary team.
Some conditions that these doctors treat regularly include soft tissue injuries of the muscles and ligaments, sprains and tears, medical conditions related to the musculoskeletal system and many more.
Common Procedures
As a sports and exercise medicine doctor, it’s very important to be able to take a good clinical history and complete a thorough physical examination. For example, understanding what movements the athlete makes regularly during their sport by asking them about it and understanding how this could affect their body.
Sports and exercise medicine doctors also do musculoskeletal injections which is a valuable diagnostic and therapeutic tool that improves pain control and function for athletes who have musculoskeletal injuries. Other things they do include cardio-pulmonary exercise testing, physical fitness and anthropometric assessments. Treatment can vary from advising exercises for athletes to carry out for strengthening of muscles to prevent further injuries.
How are they different from Sports Physiotherapists?
The main difference between the two fields is that a sports and exercise medicine doctor works more in the diagnosis of the problem, as well as the treatment plan. Physiotherapists largely use stretching and strengthening exercises to foster orthopaedic recovery; while, sports medicine doctors provide a larger variety of treatments, including surgery.
Conclusion
As a sports and exercise medicine doctor, you’ll have the chance to work with many different groups of people and help them to get back to doing what they love. Not only do you help patients with their injuries, but you also enable them to strengthen their bodies so that they do not get injuries again. These doctors play a vital role in supporting athletes and help them to perform at their best!
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