I am a junior student in the SLU AT Program from Chicago. As time is winding down in my pre-professional portion of the program and the professional phase fast approaches, I am looking forward to my future endeavors. In the past three years I have gained valuable knowledge from the great opportunities I have experienced in our program. From direct observation hours at Track Meets here at SLU to touring the Cardinals Athletic Training room, I feel I am prepared to take on the professional phase starting this summer.
One memory that has motivated me to keep pushing through, is over spring break I returned to my high school to observe Certified Athletic Trainers, Kat Hermanas ATC, Reggie Castillo ATC, and Sharon West ATC at Amos Alonzo Stagg High School. It was such an amazing feeling coming back to the Athletic Training room I once was treated at as a student-athlete and where I realized what I wanted to do with my life. The rush of student-athletes crowding the Athletic Training room when the sound of the last bell rang brought back a flood of meaningful memories.
Over the course of the week, Reggie, Kat and Sharon enlightened me of new techniques that they implement in practice. From observing multiple ankle and knee tapings for the girls’ soccer team, to icing sore shoulders of the baseball players, and rehab/ strengthening program for an ACL tear recovery, I got to witness multiple tasks I will be doing in the future at my clinical sites. Kat, Reggie, and Sharon demonstrated great practice by having the student-athlete repeat back the instructions they provided them, taking good SOAP notes for documentation, and having the injured student-athletes complete rehab notes pages logging the exercises they were doing.
I had a wonderful time spending a full week in an Athletic Training setting which was a promising feeling that I chose the right path for a career. I got to play around with different types of tape/ equipment, observe strengthening and stretching techniques, and ask questions about how the AT got to where they were today, all things we have been practicing these past three years. My favorite was when the student-athletes would come up to me and ask me about their injury. Even though I couldn’t help the student-athletes at that point, knowing that I will be able to assist in the near future was encouraging.
Overall, I could not have asked to observe better AT’s during my direct observation week at Stagg High School. I am both eager and nervous starting the professional phase in a few short weeks, but look forward to continuing down the path to reach my career goal as an Athletic Trainer.
This is one of a series of blog posts written by students entering the professional phase of the SLU AT Program as a part of MAT 3000 - AT Student Development II.
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