Career Research Paper on Athletic Trainer

The career I am researching will be athletic training, I have had a love for athletic training since I was in high school and decided to pursue this career path in college as well. The objective of this paper is to go in depth about the academics needed for the job, as well as the certifications, salaries and much more information that people searching for the same type of job could find useful. The paper will include the education requirements, the certifications needed, details about the career, and how the career has evolved through the years.

The current education requirement to be an athletic trainer is currently a bachelor’s degree, however it was recently decided that you will need to have a master’s degree. “More than 70% of athletic trainers hold a master’s degree”. Therefore, if you currently hold a bachelor’s degree, you might be pushed to now complete a master’s program to catch up to the current number of graduates that hold a master’s degree. To be able to graduate with an athletic training degree, you should have completed “Biology, Human Anatomy & Physiology I & II, Chemistry, Physics, Psychology, statistics, Exercise Science or Exercise Physiology, and Nutrition” during your college journey to be able to graduate with an athletic training degree. To grow your connections within the athletic training field, you should be beginning to Shadow different athletic trainers in the area you are thinking about working in to be able to have a hands on look at what you will be doing when you graduate. Doing work shadows is a great way to meet people who are doing the same type of work you are thinking about doing in the future after you graduate.

To become an athletic trainer, you must graduate with your degree and pass a test given by the Board of Certifications (BOC). You must meet the requirements set by the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education to be able to take the exam to be a certified athletic trainer. “Candidates have a total of 4 hours to complete the exam” (BOC 26). The exam has 175 multiple choice questions, they are a mix between scored and unscored questions, the unscored questions are experimental. After the Multiple-choice questions, they will be given scenarios and following the scenarios they will have 5 questions they have to answer based on the scenario. Some Reputable organizations that provide the certifications are the Board of Certifications and the Commission of Accreditation of Athletic Training Education.

With an athletic training degree, you can go to many different occupations, some of the different jobs you can get are a “High School Athletic Trainer, Massage Therapy, Person Trainer, Team Physician, Exercise Physiologist, Sports Dietician, etc…”. The list of jobs you can get are extensive, having an athletic training degree does not mean you can only be an athletic trainer at a high school or university, the degree is much more than just that. Some common patients that athletic trainers would work with would be athletes, athletic trainers will mostly report to the team physician if advice is ever needed for an injury. Common work environments would include, football games, basketball games, soccer games, and practices for most of these sports, and many more. As the number of injuries in sports has increased, the need for athletic trainers has increased as a result. Athletic trainers have been known to work in many other environments than just the outdoor environments, some have been known to work alongside physicians as well. Third party reimbursement is affected by the different insurance companies in athletic based on the services that they provide. The average salary for an athletic trainer is said by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to be $49,280 per year and the opportunity for advancement is based on the amount of education you have completed and the amount of experience you have. Some positive aspects of athletic training are that you get to watch different types of sports and help the people that get injured to be rehabilitated and play again. Some negative aspects of the job are that you stay busy with many different athletes, and you must deal with many different people at once.

Some of the affects that social trends have had on the profession is that most people look for a fix of medication to fix their problems when really it could mostly be solved by physical activity, but most people don’t want to hear this because they think that medicine can fix everything. Some people think that you can have a bad diet and not workout, but still be able to live a healthy lifestyle and live a long life, but the case is that this is not true. The occupation has changed in the last 10 years in that we know much more about injuries in today’s world compared to 10 years ago, and there have been changes that allow athletic trainers to be able to treat and diagnose injuries easier and less painfully. Some changes that could happen are that someone could develop robots that could take x-rays digitally and diagnose injuries without the help of live humans, and this could push athletic trainers into other jobs. Athletic training will continue to be needed as the number of people playing sports are increasing and the numbers of injuries coming from sports are also increasing.

Athletic training is a broad occupation that includes many different jobs rather than just being on the sidelines watching for injuries. The need for athletic trainers is increasing as our population is also increasing as the number of people playing sports is also increasing. To be an athletic trainer, you must go through extensive schooling and training to become an athletic trainer. Researching the field has made me more interested into researching more information about the career, the research has made me want to become an athletic trainer even more knowing that if I do not like the outdoor settings, that there are other options for me as well.