SLU AT Students Thrive in a Busy Clinical Site with a Team Atmosphere at Affton HS

SLU AT Clinical Site Spotlight - Affton High School
By: Katherine Love and Amelia Meigs (SLU MAT Class of 2017)

The Affton High School athletic training room may not be the most spacious of athletic training rooms, but it gets a lot of traffic. Each day after school, 10-30 athletes from various sports pile into the room to get treatment. This keeps us busy with taping, stretching, ultrasound, and therapeutic exercise. The past 11 weeks at Affton have been incredibly eventful—we have had a myriad of injuries from head to toe (literally). From the very first day, Becky Stigen ATC, our preceptor, has kept us busy putting our clinical skills to good use. Having someone put trust in our knowledge and skills is more than we ever could have asked for—Becky is an outstanding preceptor.

We attend home soccer, volleyball, and football games and travel with football each weekend. Through Becky’s guidance, the after-school athletic training room is an educational environment where we practice skills we learned in class on our athletes. Becky is dedicated to Affton and to ensuring that each athlete gets the care he or she deserves.

One of the most rewarding aspects of this semester has been the growing trust between the athletes and us (Katherine and Amelia). At the beginning of pre-season, the players did not know us, and would rush over calling, “Becky, Becky!” But now, we are “Becky 1” and “Becky 2” and respond to the name Becky as well. This level of trust has turned to athletes asking us for tape or rehabilitation assistance (and some even knowing our name isn’t really Becky!). Becky rules her athletic training room with a firm hand, but allows us to explore our knowledge and work together to come to solutions. The team atmosphere of the Affton athletic training room has allowed us to understand what it is like to work in athletic health care and how to effectively care for athletes as a team.

Go Cougars!

This is one of a series of posts by the Saint Louis University Athletic Training students featuring their clinical site and their preceptors. The number, quality and diversity of clinical instruction are major assets for the SLU AT Program.