SLU AT Summer Field Experience Spotlight - Mercy Sports Medicine
By: C.J. Butler (SLU MAT Class of 2018)
This summer I’ve have been lucky enough to work with Dr. Brian Mahaffey and the Mercy Sports Medicine team. Dr. Mahaffey is a primary care sports medicine physician who sees athletes varying in age, sport and skillset. He uses his knowledge and expertise to avoid surgery as much as possible and by using functional movement screening and the full body approach find “the why” for an injury. This has taught me a lot about rehabilitation for injuries and how important it is to find the underlying cause of the problem and fix it so it won’t continue to come back.
One of my main goals for this summer was to learn the clinical side of sports medicine and what I, as a future athletic trainer, could do to increase the efficiency of patient care. I have been able to see how Dr. Mahaffey uses the multidisciplinary team around him, including athletic trainers, physical therapists and other specialists. Since the clinic is directly attached to a rehabilitation center there is constant communication between the team to insure that the patients are on the right track at all times. This patient centered approach not only gets the athletes physically and emotionally back to where they were before, but the ability to be even better.
Students in the Saint Louis University Athletic Training Program have an immersive field experience in the summer between their two professional years in the program. This blog post details a student's reflection on their experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment