Sports Medicine Doctor
What do they do?
Sports medicine doctors identify, diagnose, and treat injuries caused to the musculoskeletal
system caused by playing sports. They order and examine tests such as MRI’s, x-rays and
ultrasounds along with lab tests and tell the athlete whether they should return to the sport and
how they can help their own injury at home. They also record athletes’ medical records and
information along with perform examinations.
Education: To be a sports medicine doctor you will need to finish high school with an
approximate 3.71 overall GPA. You will not have to do any specific courses. After you finish
high school, you will need to go to complete a 4 year bachelor's degree with pre-med courses in
anatomy, biology and chemistry. After completing your bachelors degree, you will need to obtain
a medical degree with specialty training such as finishing a sports medicine residency.
Outlook and Salary:
The outlook rating for this occupation is 2 stars, meaning that this job is not highly in demand
but your prospects of finding employment after school is fair. For Ontario, their low salary is 45k,
their median salary is 128k and their high salary is 360k. In other provinces their salary is
higher. In Alberta their low salary is 60k and their high 426k. In Newfoundland their low is 47k
and their high is about 600k.
Work Place:
These doctors normally work in offices and clinics which is where they perform their
examinations and appointments. Sometimes doctors will be in groups and work together. Also,
sports medicine doctors can be hired to help at a sporting event in case of an injury that occurs
and can also work for sports teams.
Skills:
- In order to become a sports med doctor, you have to have good communication skills.
These doctors need to be able to communicate well with their patients to address what
the problem is along with their colleagues to inform them on what they’re doing as well
as pharmacists in the case of them needing to prescribe something to a patient.
- They also need to be good leaders. If they need to be in charge of a certain number of
staff, they have to be able to lead and organize where everyone should be.
- Sports med doctors need to have problem solving skills so that they can figure out the
symptoms that the patients have.
- In addition, they have to have a great memory. There are so many different parts of the
body and so many different things that can happen to them. So, they must remember
every single one of these variables to provide the right diagnosis and treatment to their
patients,
-
Finally it’s extremely important for sports med doctors to have patience. Not every
treatment that these doctors do will be short. Sometimes treatments could be for long
time and they have to be patient.
Examples of titles of sports medicine doctors include:
- Athletic team physician
- Director sports medicine
- Sports medicine physician
Our Opinions: (Ahreez) I think that I would pursue this occupation because I could be close to a
lot of professional athletes. I would also like to work as Sports med doctor because they have a
really good salary.
(Aidan) I think that I would like to apply for a job like this because the salary is above average
and it would be cool to learn about the different injuries and conflicts that athletes have to
overcome. The bad part is that it is a lot of work that you have to do at med school but it would
be worth it.
(Arjun) I think that being a sports medicine doctor would be a great occupation because it has a
its a great way to help other people, can have a very high pay and would allow me to work
around sports. The major downside for me is that med school takes 10 years to complete.