We are starting at the beginning again with this one but for good reason.  In talking with people both in the medical and outside, I realize that not everyone knows what a sports medicine doctor is or what we do.  To be honest, that is fair because it is actually fairly confusing. There are a few types of sports medicine doctors that exist, and to make it more confusing even doctors of the same type may practice in very different ways.  Lets get to it… 

First, all doctors go to college (undergraduate) and then medical school.  Near the end of medical school, we all choose a residency training program (aka the kind of doctor we want to be).  This would be choosing things like General Surgery, Family Medicine, Radiology, etc… you get the idea.  This is the first and main divide that divides the two types. 

The decision.  Sort of like Lebron’s decision to go to Miami, only not nearly as televised… To be a sports medicine doctor you could decide to be trained in a field of general medicine first  (a residency in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Emergency Medicine, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation) OR you could decide to train in orthopedic surgery first.  This is the main divide – medicine or orthopedic surgery.  And hence really the main decision is:  do you want to be a surgeon?  This is how we divide the surgical sports medicine and non-surgical sports medicine doctors – how she or he trained in her or his residency.  

After residency of whichever variety, to do sports medicine you need further training.  We spend extra time after our first chunk of education studying a smaller area of medicine to specialize for our career.  These fellowships are separate for medicine and orthopedic surgeons, but sometimes (like the program where I trained) they parallel one another and have lots of shared/similar experiences. This process is like one that happens for all fields considered “subspecialized” as for a general surgery resident that decides he or she wants to be a vascular surgeon, or an internal medicine resident that wants to be a cardiologist… It is a way to focus further into specific area you choose. 

Back to us sports docs… Once you complete your sports medicine fellowship you take a test to be certified in sports medicine. For me, that was called the Certificate of Added Qualifications (CAQ). This officially makes you a sports medicine doctor.  After a minimum of 12 years of education after high school, now it’s time to get a job (finally). 

Orthopedic surgeons who become Sports Medicine-specialized work as surgeons. That makes sense, right?  They see patients with injuries of primarily the knee, shoulder, elbow, hip, and sometimes ankles.  They can do some treatment for other extremities like wrists too.  They often do surgery via arthroscopy (cameras used inside of joints) and repair/reconstruct ligaments/tendons, replace shoulders/knees, and sometimes fix simple broken bones.  Depending on their interests they might pick a body part to specifically focus in on; for example, one of my colleagues loves knees and now his practice is mostly focused on patients with knee problems.  

For primary care sports medicine doctors like me, the type of careers we have can be more confusing because our practice structure is more variable.  Basically this means even though we all have the same training, we end up working in different environments for our career.  Examples should help. Lets explore Doctors A, B, and C- all trained the same way as primary care sports medicine doctors to this point. Doctor A decided to continue to practice mainly their general medicine specialty. So although he or she is sports medicine trained they see patients of every complaint under the sun from colds, to high blood pressure to diabetes to knee pain.  You name it they have probably seen it.  Next we have Doctor B.  I like to think of Doctor B as a hybrid.  Doctor B works with other primary care doctors in a group setting and although they also probably see everything under the sun a patient might need, they also see the sport injuries for that group.  If you call to see your doctor and have knee pain for example, your doctor might see it or they might funnel it to the sports trained doctor that is a part of their team.  And finally, Doctor C.  Doctor C works within orthopedics along side our surgeon colleagues.  I am like Doctor C! We function in a similar way to our sports surgeon trained compadres and are part of the team that career for patient calling us for orthopedic concerns.  This of course is also not an exhaustive list and there are many other nuances about what we do.   We can be team doctors, we can take care of dancers and runners or prefer to primarily do procedures and injections, etc… etc… 

A great video can be found on the AMSSM website which I shared here. https://youtu.be/FExwzFWvpE4

My specific path went like this.  I spent 4 years in undergrad at the University of Evansville in Indiana. After that, I went on to medical school at Indiana University where I received my MD (Medical Doctor) degree.  After medical school I went to residency in Cleveland, Ohio to learn Internal Medicine (ie: general adult medicine) for 3 years. I could have stopped here- and the path I described above would’ve said the next step is going directly to fellowship.  But, after my internal medicine training I actually stayed on for a one year extra year of administrative work before heading off to fellowship.  This year was called a Chief Resident year and is something that you are selected to do by hospital leadership.  Back on the aforementioned path, my sports medicine fellowship was another 1 year program in Cleveland, Ohio.  These training programs are variable based off where you train and also your own background and career desires to add another layer of complexity.  My program did a great job of preparing me for my role now which is working in full orthopedics offices and as a team doctor at a large academic healthcare facility.  Pretty cool, right!

Best,