Scope of a Career in Sports Medicine

With the commercialization of sporting activities at various levels as well as the increasing awareness towards health and sports among general public, the need for professionals who specialize in sports medicine has drastically gone up. Typically, a sport medicine professional works towards the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of sports of exercise related injuries.

A quintessential sporting medicine team in Vancouver includes physiotherapy experts, trainers in athletics, medical professionals and fitness instructors.

Specializing in the Field of Sports Medicine

There are a number of areas within the space of sports medicine that you can choose to specialize in. You can choose to be an athletic trainer or fitness instructor who typically interacts with the athletes on a day-to-day basis to make sure they are training right and avoiding any form of injuries. You can also opt to pursue medicine and get into orthopaedics, or cardiac or pulmonary rehabilitation that opens doors to also spreading your wings outside of the realms of sports medicine. Some popular disciplines within sports medicine include –

1. Physical Therapy
2. Sports Diet and Nutrition
3. Massage Therapy
4. Kinesiology
5. Exercise Physiology
6. Occupational Therapy
7. Research in Sports Medicine

Scope of this Industry

The commercialization of sports and its merger with the entertainment industry through the formation of premier leagues around the world, sports medicine as a department is typically doing very well with enhanced budgets and sponsorships.

A professional in this field can sufficiently make a lucrative salary out of this, and depending on personal skills and ability to network with the right kind of people, land some pretty fascinating deals with professional sporting teams.

Studying to Become a Professional in Sports Medicine

If you wish to pursue sports medicine as a career, you will have to consider completing a comprehensive medical program depending on the discipline you wish to specialize in and also depending on the country you choose to study in. Different countries offer different routes of education after which you can pursue a favoured specialization in a relevant field of sports medicine.

For example, pursuing a degree in athletic training may require you to study sports nutrition, biomechanics, conditioning and anatomy. A typical undergraduate degree in sports medicine and fitness technology expects students to study subjects such as exercise leadership, applied kinesiology, injury prevention, strength training and substance abuse. Depending on your interests to study further, you can even apply for a Master’s in exercise physiology which teaches you concepts in clinical exercise physiology, lab techniques, electrocardiography, cardiac rehabilitation and statistical interpretation.

American College of Sports Medicine; University of Nottingham, UK; American Sports Medicine Institute; University of Bath, UK; and University of Queensland, Australia offer the best programs in sports medicine in the world.

Sports medicine as an industry offers tremendous scope for ambitious professionals who are passionate enough to go through the rigorous training programs and are sufficiently skilled to provide, prevention, treatment and rehabilitative services to sports persons and physically active individuals.