SLU AT Student Grows Professionally Through Experience with the Saint Louis Football Club

SLU AT Summer Field Experience Spotlight - Saint Louis Football Club

By: Cody Hutson (SLU MAT Class of 2019)

This summer I have had the honor of working with Saint Louis’ professional soccer team, Saint Louis Football Club (STLFC). I have always wanted to have my career to be focused on soccer and this is the perfect opportunity for me to peek into what that world would be like. I am stationed at Toyota Stadium in Fenton and help treat and maintain the health and fitness of the professional athletes. 

I have the pleasure to learn from the STLFC Head Athletic Trainer Mr. Brian Bounds MPT, ATC, LAT, CSCS. We spend a lot of time working with athletes to both rehabilitate and loosen them up before practice and games. This has made it so that the experience is far different from what I have experienced before. I used to depend on primarily tape and doing exams on athletes with modalities as a main treatment option. After working with Mr. Bounds for a while I can say with confidence that I understand the importance of using your hands to release muscles and deep tissue. It is something I don’t think I would have experienced anywhere else and is something I am looking forward to applying myself once I am a certified Athletic Trainer. 

Aside from manual techniques I am also learning the importance of being professional in both appearance and in action. One quote that I will always carry with me is “Your Athletic Training room and your environment are a direct reflection of yourself, and are important in your appearance as a professional.” 

I have already gotten more than half of my requirements finished at this site, but I don’t plan on leaving until the very last second so that I may continue to learn and develop from what I believe is my dream clinical site.

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.

SLU AT Students and Faculty Team Up at Nike Basketball Camp

Saint Louis University's Simon Recreation Center serves as the host site for one of the nation's top basketball events each June.  

Nike invites some of the country's top high school freshmen and sophomore basketball players to the Elite 100 Basketball Camp to help them develop their skills on and off the court.  Many of the top players currently in the NBA participated in this event over the years.

Once again this year, on June 7-10, 2018, SLU Athletic Training Program faculty and students worked side by side to provide medical care for the camp.  

This provides a great clinical connection for our program, and has emerged into a tradition and gives them a common experience over the years.

We appreciate this opportunity each year to empower our students in a fun and exciting clinical environment.

SLU AT Student Appreciates How Classroom Learning Integrates with Clinical Experience at Parkway West HS

SLU AT Clinical Site Spotlight - Parkway West High School

By: Cody Hutson (SLU MAT Class of 2019)

During my time at Parkway West High School I have learned greatly about how to present one’s self as well as apply skills that we as students have learned in class. It is important to have confidence as an athletic trainer because while in the high school setting, everything we say will be taken seriously and a building of trust with the athletes is crucial to the healing process.

There are also opportunities to be less serious and can joke around with those around us, but we need to maintain a degree of respect and professionalism. Just because we are dealing with energetic high school athletes does not mean that we can forget who and what we represent and lose sight on the responsibilities given to us while at work.

It is strangely fun being able to go back to the same site every day but returning with a new technique or piece of knowledge that I could wield to be more useful to the athletic trainer that I am studying under. Having the opportunity to use something I was able to learn that day leaves a bigger impression and makes the information easier for me to remember than simply just in the classroom setting.

Being able to gain confidence on a nearly daily basis is a good feeling and I appreciate everything my preceptor Matthew Berning, ATC, the Parkway West staff, and the student athletes have done for me.

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.

SLU Pre-professional AT Students Experience Dynamic Athletic Health Care with the Billikens

New AT Student Blog Post - Brian Leach and Cody Hutson (SLU MAT Class of 2019)

Perfect weather, a gorgeous city skyline in the background, and top of the line athletic training marked another successful day for me at Saint Louis University.  This eight hour day started off observing discus throw, and wondering to myself about all the unique injuries the Saint Louis University AT staff must encounter each day.  We observed treatments ranging from what we would expect, such as, taping ankles and hands, Graston, and electronic muscle stimulation, to things we wouldn’t readily expect, like ear draining.  This is just one great example of the unique injuries an AT in the field may face.  Besides the treatments, we helped with ice and set up.  Something the AT staff would have had to do by themselves had we not been there to help.  We also gained an understanding of resource management, an important part of working an event like a track meet if you don’t want run out of tape or ice in the middle of a tournament.  There is obviously more to being an AT than just treating injuries.  This is an extremely dynamic field that demands a lot of organization.

Being able to observe Athletic Trainers in the field is a unique opportunity that sets a standard for how we, as students, will proceed in our career and what challenges we will face.  We get to see what injuries are most common, talk to the current generation about what problems they experience and what uncommon injuries they have experienced, and even chat about the classes we are taking and how they (as older ATs) felt while studying when they were in our position. We get to see how they act while on their job site and how they interact with the athletes. We see and hear things that we would do different and how much the athletes look to us for help. It is almost like we get an opportunity to look into our future and see what we will be doing after graduation.

When we started down this path of becoming an Athletic Trainer we never considered all of the moving parts that make up this career field.  We are happy to say that we are excited to begin our careers as Athletic Trainers.  We look forward to the professional phase of this program, and the clinical experiences that await.  We know that we have made the right choice!

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.