From Tragedy to Triumph
Athletic Training Students Experience Continuation of Care through UND Center for Sports Medicine
Few know or even think about what happens after an athlete is injured during a game. No matter the side, the crowd supplies the requisite applause as the hobbling competitor is helped to the sidelines by the athletic trainer. However, the athletic trainer’s work does not end there. In the weeks, or even months, ahead, both the athlete and the trainer work hard to get him or her back in the game.
The Division of Sports Medicine within the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of North Dakota (UND) School of Medicine and Health Sciences has been offering a Bachelor of Science in Athletic Training degree since 1991.
What are athletic trainers?
Certified athletic trainers are health care professionals who specialize in preventing, recognizing, managing and rehabilitating injuries that result from physical activity.
National Athletic
Trainers’ Association |
According to the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, certified
athletic trainers are health care professionals who specialize in preventing, recognizing, managing and rehabilitating injuries that result from physical activity. As part of a complete health care team, the certified athletic trainer works under the direction of a licensed physician and in cooperation with other health care professionals, athletics administrators, coaches and parents.
The athletic training degree at UND is one of just a few in the country to be part of a medical school and the only one in the nation to be in a family and community medicine department.
“I came to UND because I really liked that the program was based at the med school,” said Brie-Anne Woitas, a senior athletic training student who grew up in Albert Lea, MN.
“Our connection to the medical school is very important,” said Steven Westereng (BSAT ’94), director of the Division of Sports Medicine. “It allows us to truly educate our students as part of the health care team.”
Center for Sports Medicine
Not all programs have a sports medicine clinic, either. Where rehabilitation experience is limited for students in other athletic training programs, UND students do regular rotations at the division’s Center for Sports Medicine located in the Hyslop Sports Center on the UND campus.
The Center for Sports Medicine is an outpatient physical therapy clinic providing comprehensive care for sport, recreational and orthopedic injuries. The center also serves as a teaching facility for sports injury care for athletic training, physical therapy and medical students.
Both physical therapists and certified athletic trainers, Cathy Ziegler and Robin Paine supervise the students.For eight weeks at a time for about fives hours a week, athletic training students shadow physical therapy staff and do some independent work with the center’s patients. They also learn about a variety of assessment and rehabilitation equipment that they will use in their profession.
“Working in the clinic gives us more in-depth experience,” said Woitas, who has already been through several clinic rotations. “It allows us to take information from the classroom and apply it to real-life situations.”
About 30 percent of the center’s patients are UND athletes, but the center also treats referred patients with sport-related or orthopedic injuries from UND Student Health Services and the general public.
“What students get here that they don’t necessarily get in other schools is an opportunity to treat patients of different ages,” said Ziegler, who manages the clinic and has been there for 15 years. “Because we treat the public, we have patients as young as eight and patients on Medicare.
“That’s important, because athletic training isn’t just treating college athletes,” she continued. “They might be working with younger children or even in an industrial setting.”
From start to finish
“Rehab isn’t a cookbook formula. Some need to be pushed and others need to be held back.”
-Steven Westereng
Director
UND Division of Sports Medicine |
While athletic training students also do rotations with the 21 UND athletic teams, it is at the Center for Sports Medicine where they experience the process of recovery. In the clinic students are exposed to the rehabilitation process from start to completion.
“It is important that students spend time in the clinic because injury assessment is such a small part of what they will be doing,” said Ziegler. “The recovery time and what you do to aid and speed the recovery is an important aspect of what we do.”
“Rehab isn’t a cookbook formula,” says Westereng. “Some need to be pushed and others need to be held back.”
“It’s amazing seeing an athlete return to the playing field after they experience a devastating injury,” said Woitas.
-Amanda Scurry
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