A sports medicine physician specializes in preventing, diagnosing, and treating activity-related injuries. These specialists help athletes and active individuals recover from injuries, enhance performance, and avoid future injuries.
Sports medicine doctors complete medical school, primary residency (family medicine, internal medicine, emergency medicine, or PM&R), and a one- to two-year sports medicine fellowship. Some orthopedic surgeons also complete sports medicine training.
A Sports Medicine Doctor's practice includes:
- Emphasizes musculoskeletal trauma, exercise science, and athletic optimization
- Conducts physical assessments, orders imaging, diagnoses activity-related injuries, formulates treatment and rehabilitation strategies
- Treats ligamentous injuries, muscular strains, tendon inflammation, overuse injuries, skeletal stress injuries, and head trauma
- Uses conservative management (therapeutic injections, bracing, physical rehabilitation), exercise programming, and orthopedic surgical coordination
- Also called: sports physician, athletic medicine specialist, team doctor, MD, DO