SLU AT Student Finds Great Fit for Clinical Experience at Nutriformance

SLU AT Summer Field Experience Spotlight - Nutriformance, Frontenac, MO 

By: Brian Leach (SLU MAT Class of 2019)

When considering options, I started thinking about what I wanted to do for my summer field experience.  I thought about going out of state and even out of country at first.  However, after talking with my wife, we decided leaving the area would not be the best of ideas considering we have a newborn son now.  So, I started looking around the Saint Louis area for opportunities.  There were quite a few great opportunities to choose from. 

Nutriformance in Frontenac, MO was the best choice for me.  Nutriformance offers a wide range of services including, but not limited to, personal training, physical therapy, and nutrition coaching from registered dietitians.  Nutriformance has been dedicated to their client’s health and wellness since 1997 with no signs of slowing down.

Although I am not technically part of the formal staff at Nutriformance, they have made me feel as though I am a part of their team with a near seamless integration.  Since beginning the summer field experience, I have been helping the strength and conditioning coaches provide excellent guidance to young athletes from around the greater St. Louis area.  I have also been shadowing the athletic trainers on staff while they help athletes of all ages stay healthy for their sports.  

I am very appreciative of the guidance I have received from the staff at Nutriformance.  This really is turning out to be a fantastic experience.

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.

AT Student and Military Veteran Finds a Home at SLU with his Preceptor at St. John Vianney HS

SLU AT Clinical Site Spotlight - St. John Vianney High School
By: Brian Leach (MAT Class of 2019)

The last year in the military is an exciting time for most services members. I was so excited to start down a new path, and my mind was flooded with all the possibilities. I was actually planning on returning to University of Missouri Kansas City where I had just been accepted. But after remembering a conversation between my sister and I about Saint Louis University when I was 11 years old, I realized that I needed to apply. I wanted to go to school for Anthropology at first, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of Athletic Training Program a few lines down on the list. After a little thought, I decided that Athletic Training was the major for me, and so I applied and got in.

Now here I am four years later doing my clinicals at Saint John Vianney, a school my father used to brag about but had never attended. I am currently under the guidance of Tim Trupiano, ATC head Athletic Trainer at Vianney. I honestly cannot think of a better place to begin my clinical experience. Tim Trupiano reminds me a lot of one of my best friends from the military. Easy going guy that puts everything he can into being great at his job. I couldn’t be more grateful. I am especially thankful to begin my clinical experience at a site without modalities. I think that this is helpful for the sake of keeping things simple. Here I can learn to appreciate a more hands on, bare bones approach to treatment rather than getting lost in all the options.

I feel that I am building a solid foundation as I move forward into my future of becoming a good Athletic Trainer.

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.