Objectives

The sports medicine fellow will use the strategies below to achieve the core competencies as they apply in both general medicine as well as sports medicine.

Patient care
The sports medicine fellow will work with a variety of different patients including athletes, both in the community and local schools as well as general family medicine patients. Care of patients will be compassionate, appropriate and effective. There is an emphasis placed on continuity of patient care for the fellow in their clinic sites including the sports medicine clinics, training rooms and primary care clinics.
360° Evaluation: The 360° evaluation technique is used to evaluate the fellow’s patient care skills.

Medical knowledge
The fellow will take advantage of multiple learning opportunities to expand his or her medical fund of knowledge based on the goals and objectives of the fellowship. These include: Journal Club, weekly topic based didactics, radiology teaching, noon lecture series, athlete training rooms, multiple specialty rotations and pre-participation physical exams. The fellow is also encouraged to use online reference materials, continuing medical education materials and conferences to advance their knowledge base. Finally, the fellow will use independent study and complete the in-training exam with review to evaluate their knowledge.

Practice-based learning and improvement
The fellow will use scientific evidence to learn and apply it to patients seen. The fellow will also play an integral role in the Sports Medicine Journal Club, reviewing and appraising appropriate scientific literature. Clinical supervision is provided in each of the clinical settings for evaluation and fine tuning of exam skills, case discussion and further teaching.

Interpersonal and communication skills
The fellow will be evaluated by the faculty on these parameters including the fellow’s verbal and written documentation in all patient care settings and with other healthcare professionals. The fellow will have the opportunity to watch the faculty interact with patients in a clinic which will permit for the discussion on the acquisition of these skills. Conversely, the faculty will also have the opportunity to watch the fellow interact with patients, families and other healthcare professionals. 360° evaluation will also be used to provide feedback on communication and interpersonal skills.

Professionalism
The fellow will adhere to appropriate ethical principles of professionalism, confidentiality, timely completion of patient forms and medical records and sensitivity to culturally diverse patients.

Systems-based practice
The program will foster an understanding of healthcare systems as it pertains specifically to sports medicine. The faculty and fellow will discuss and practice successful navigation of health systems and how to use a team approach (other healthcare professionals, coaches, administrators) when providing care for patients to strive for their best outcome. Further discussion on cost effective use of resources when evaluating patients, appropriate coding and billing and extensive use of electronic health records will assist in achieving this parameter.