Clinical Experience

The Sports Medicine fellow's education occurs through a variety of clinical settings, including the Sports Medicine Center, orthopedic clinics, sideline coverage and training rooms. There are experiences with ancillary services such as physical therapy, sports nutrition, sports psychology, and pharmacology. There is also one-half day of clinic in the fellow’s primary specialty. 

Our Sports Medicine Center offers onsite digital X-ray, computerized medical records, casting, orthotics and musculoskeletal ultrasound. Our faculty helps provide sports coverage for all 8 high schools in Cabarrus County and consults for athletes from the Charlotte metro region. 

Our fellows get collegiate experience through two venues.

Davidson College is an NCAA Division I school with 2,080 students, and 21 men’s and women’s varsity sports who are members of the Pioneer Football League (football), Southern Conference (Wrestling) and Atlantic 10 Conference (all other sports).  

Catawba College is an NCAA Division II school with approximately 1,400 students and approximately 500 student athletes. The college participates in the South Atlantic conference and offers 22 NCAA Division II athletic teams. 

Each fellow is assigned their own high school where they will serve as the head team physician.

Additional coverage opportunities include the NC State High School Wrestling Tournament, NC State High School Track Championship, The NC/SC Shrine Bowl, as well as other major events, such as the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC.  We also have other educational opportunities to work with other fellowship programs in the state.

Additional professional development is encouraged in scholarship. We expect fellows to develop and complete a scholarly project and plan to publish and/or present their findings at AMSSM, or another state or national meeting. We additionally support the fellow writing a review article or case report for publication. Mentoring in research and scholarship is available on site from our faculty and a dedicated Atrium Health Musculoskeletal Institute research team. The goal of this requirement is to allow development of skills in writing, critical literature analysis and basic research.  

The fellow has extensive game and sports coverage so that during the course of the year he/she attends between 50 and 100 athletic contests. The Sports Medicine Fellowship experience will provide a balanced experience of clinical care in the primary specialty, non-operative sports medicine, orthopedics and preventive medicine. The fellows will develop academic skills, which will enable them to become teachers for their patients and community, as well as prepare them for opportunities in academic medicine. The fellows will garner these additional skills while maintaining exceptional skills as a family physician.

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