My Athletic Training Philosophy as a Clinician

As an athletic trainer, I believe in providing the best possible health care to my patients.  In being able to provide this care I realize that I need to possess a variety of skills.  The obvious skills include those cognitive and psychomotor skills any athletic trainer should possess.  These are entities that are outlined through the Role Delineation Study.  Perhaps not so obvious are the skills that can differentiate a ‘average’ athletic trainer from an ‘outstanding’ athletic trainer.

I take pride in learning about the patients to which I provide care.  This includes learning more about the individual, their culture, language and their life.  I feel that I am a better clinician for taking the time to know my patient on more of a personal manner, rather than as a clinician/patient relationship only.  I also realize this philosophy will conflict with what others may follow as their mantra as a professional, however, for me, this type of relationship between clinician and patient affords me the opportunity to provide the best care possible while also taking into account the needs, values and philosophies of my patient.   

I understand the importance of confidentiality and maintaining a level of decorum that reflects the Code of Ethics of the National Athletic Trainer’s Association.  As a ATC, I make it part of my philosophy to demonstrate, through my actions, the importance of being a professional member of the association.  The manner in which I talk with patients, assist with their rehabilitation and manage acute care situations reflects positively on myself and on the profession of athletic training.

I value learning and as such have committed myself to be a life long learner.  I make efforts to hold the role of either a presenter or participant at professional meetings at the state, district and national level. I educate myself through reading and viewing the literature and research being conducted with content in the medical community as it relates to athletic training.  I also feel it important that I am an active participant in developing the very literature in which fellow professionals are reading.  I therefore, make effort to publish within professional journals in order to further promote the profession of athletic training. Ultimately, it is my belief that I am able to provide the best care to my patients when I am up-to-date with what the literature is discussing. 

I believe that through the efforts I have taken, and through the philosophy I have developed I am able to provide the best care possible to my patient base.  This includes providing both acute and long-term care.  I provide best practices as have been identified in our professional literature to give care to patients with the goal of getting them back to their skills of daily living or to participation as quickly as possible while at the same time providing no further harm.

Social Media

PLEASE view this video!

It underscores the importance social media has not only on millennials, but on all generations.  How, you may ask, does this apply to me if I am an clinical athletic trainer?  A teaching athletic trainer?   In so many ways!

As a clinician, it may mean we think of a variety of ways in which we can provide care to our patients.  Perhaps the use of video feeds, on-line resources, skype, and or adobe connect to interact and communicate rehabilitation protocol for our patients.

As an educator,  the video underscores the importance social media has.  This, in turn, should be reason enough to have ATEP educators begin to think outside the box when teaching.  This may help to more actively engage our students in the classroom.  We also know that the 'traditional' classroom of being a physical place is also changing. There are progressive academic institutions that are providing on-line teaching for entire programs, not only for a class or two.  My belief is that we will begin to see a growth in on-line ATEPs in the not-too-distant future.  Let's begin to prepare ourselves for both the challenges and excitement this type of teaching delivery can offer!

Athletic Trainer as a Teacher

So much has been occurring with many communities (including the medical) regarding concussions; their impact on the individual (both short and long-term); how to evaluate; manage and care for the pathology.  Athletic Trainers are finding themselves in the forefront in providing information to state regulators regarding the acute management and care of a patient who suffers from a concussion.  Many states are now creating legislation regarding who can assess an athlete for a concussion and who decides the return to play.  In addition, many professional organizations, including the NFL, NBA and NHL are re-evaluating operational rules regarding hits to the head, penalties (both team and individual financial penalties) and preventative measures that can be instituted.  With recent findings from the Sports Legacy Institute (http://www.sportslegacy.org/), concussion has gained much attention in the media.

As athletic trainers and athletic training educators, it is imperative that we continue to remain abreast of current research; the dialogue that is occurring between the medical and legal fields; and how the changes may either positively or negatively affect our ability to provide care to patients.  Further, as athletic training educators, we need to continue to ensure future professionals have the capability to educate their constituents and patients with regard to  health issues that are germane to their populations they treat, in this case concussion.  As CAATE Accredited programs, we realize being able to secure and disseminate educational information is something that must be included in our curriculum. I believe, however, that as educators we need to help our students to ‘think outside the box’ as they prepare to educate others.  Future professionals  need to take into account a variety of issues to create effective strategies that will be serve and meet their populations.  Such things as literacy level of their audience, primary language spoken and read, accessibility to their population.  For example, are you planning a face-to-face discussion?  If so, does your population have the means to get to you?  Do they have time to take away from work? Family responsibilities?  If you are looking at presenting information with the use of technology, does your population have access to computers?  How do they value the use of computers with regard to education?  Are they ‘tech savvy’?

It is my opinion that as an athletic trainer, we are an educator – be it formally in the classroom, or informally through educating patients, parents, caregivers, administrators and or coaches.  As such, we need to be sure to possess the skills to effectively reach our audience.

My Teaching Philosophy

The first tenet in my philosophy of teaching is the use of creative teaching methods.  I believe it is an educator's responsibility to teach classes that are educational, while at the same time interesting and engaging.  I have taught pre-professional athletic trainers by using a myriad of creative teaching techniques.  The theory behind creative teaching strategies is that education can get stale if the same pedagogical techniques are used repetitively.  If educators use many different teaching strategies, students will be excited to come to class, and greater learning will take place.  I fully subscribe to this theory, and once again, my teaching evaluations indicate that students enjoy and benefit from this practice.

The use of creative teaching strategies is based, in part, on the theory of multiple intelligence, which illustrates the second tenet in my philosophy of teaching.  I feel it is of the utmost importance to teach with an awareness that all students learn in different ways. Therefore, I make a point to provide students with varied opportunities to demonstrate their academic ability.  In addition to the midterm and final, each course has a variety of additional assignments students can complete to demonstrate proficiency in the subject area.  Assignments are not merely traditional writing requirements, but a combination of participatory, applied, and reflective learning experiences.  Since some learners have a hard time absorbing auditory directions, I clearly outline all assignments in the syllabus.  I also utilize rubrics to assess writing and other course assignments.

Students are not simply different in the ways that they learn.  Nowadays, educators are challenged to work with students who are different from each other in many ways, including, but not limited to race, culture, and socioeconomic background.  I have had the opportunity to teach at two institutions of higher education, one in the Long Island area and the second in the Greater Boston area. Since education is not divorced from community, the third tenet in my teaching philosophy is related to cultural competency.  As a faculty member I believe it is of the utmost importance to: (a) be sensitive to the diversity among my students; (b) actively seek greater levels of personal cultural competence and try to have that competence reflected in my teaching; and (c) inspire pre-professionals to be aware of multiculturalism in our society and seek greater levels of cultural competence for themselves. I make every effort to integrate diversity into my course curriculum. I often plan learning experiences that force students to question personal beliefs about tough issues, such as sexual orientation, racial differences in academic achievement and their responsibility to teach to the community they work in.  I try to foster acceptance of others though affective, interactive learning experience in the classroom.

The fourth and final tenet in my philosophy of teaching relates to maintaining a current knowledge base in the field.  I believe it is the responsibility of educators to stay abreast of, and participate in research related to education in general, and their field in particular. For example, current pedagogical research indicates that skills-based learning, curriculum integration, parent involvement and service learning that have proven to have an impact on health behavior.  I have integrated all of these topics into my course curricula and continue to follow the literature to ensure that I am informed of new advances in the field.  In addition to following research trends in pedagogy, it is essential for the athletic training and health educator to stay informed of general research in the field of health, wellness and trends in pathologies related to athletic medicine.  Athletic Training Educators and Health Educators work in fields that are constantly evolving and it is their duty to maintain a current working knowledge of these disciplines.  If educators working in pre-service professional programs maintain current knowledge of the field, they are in turn, modeling another important behavior for their students, which relates back to the initial tenet in my philosophy of teaching.

One of the most recent examples of maintaining a current pedagogical knowledge base relates to the integration of technology into education.  As technology has begun to play a greater role in society, educators have begun to capitalize on technology, not only to reach students, but also to effectively impart knowledge.  With this in mind, I have been able to take advantage of technology to enhance my course curricula.  I often utilize PowerPoint and other multimedia technologies to make my lectures more dynamic.  In the past few years, my students and I have had the pleasure of transitioning to the Blackboard system.  The ease of posting on-line course materials and grades have made my courses more efficient, but I believe the on-line communication tools are the features that have best improved the course.  The students and I communicate on a daily basis now, instead of waiting to see each other once or twice a week. I am now exploring the use of Twitter, Adobe Connect and blogging in the classroom setting.   Technology has allowed for communication and learning to occur literally, at the touch of a button.