AT Faculty Member Combines Teaching With Health Care at SLU Ice Hockey Games

It’s not just cool --- it is ice cold!
By: Timothy G. Howell Ed.D, ATC, CSCS

I love being a Billiken! As the clinical education coordinator for the Saint Louis University Athletic Training Program (ATP), a position I have held for almost three years, I have a vested interest in AT Student (ATS) success. My primary role in the ATP is to make certain we have the right types of preceptors and clinical sites to ensure ATS are getting some great opportunities to practice the skills they are learning in the classroom in a real-time athletic training environment.

SLU AT students Michael Aaron, Claire Botting and Angie Vitale on the bench at a SLU Ice Hockey game.

One such environment has a playing surface of between 14-24 degrees.  An ATS, either PY1 or PY2, can sign-up with me to provide athletic health care when I provide home game coverage for the SLU Club Ice Hockey Team. It is a great opportunity for me to see first hand what skills athletic training students are taking with them from the classroom to the field (or in this case the ice.) I get to interact with the ATS outside of the classroom as their preceptor, not their faculty member nor their clinical education coordinator, but someone who, beyond the dasher boards, can help refine an athletic training students skills and abilities.