How to Become a Sports Medicine Nurse

April 12, 2023 by Staff

Sports medicine nurses have an important task – to help physicians care for sportspeople. Sportspeople frequently experience injuries like muscle strains, but also more serious injuries like torn ligaments, bone fractures, and dislocations. Being a nurse is a responsible position, which is why it’s reserved for those who successfully complete relevant medical programs.  In this article, we’ll discuss what it’s like to be a sports medicine nurse and how you can become one.

What’s a Sports Medicine Nurse?

Sports medicine nurses are family or orthopedic nurse practitioners who’ve passed a fellowship in the field. The daily tasks of a sport medicine nurse are to help physicians during diagnosis, treatment of injuries related to sports, as well as musculoskeletal surgeries. It is also the job of the nurse to take care of the patients during the recovery period i.e. help them regain their strength and heal their injuries.

Thanks to their knowledge and training, sports medicine nurses will also train athletes about ways to prevent more injuries or alleviate their symptoms. A nurse can help treat anything from strains and sprains to ligament tears and Achilles tendon injury.

Studying to become a sports medicine nurse is not easy on the students. This is a very important field of study, which is why most students request professional assistance for their nursing assignment online. Thanks to the professional writers at a nursing assignment writing service, students can now complete all their tasks before the deadline and get online help whenever they need it. This makes the subject a bit easier to master, and they can be rest assured that they’ll deliver the best quality paper every time, even if they don’t know how to write an essay on a given topic.

When the professional obtains the necessary certification, they can be employed in the healthcare system to help doctors in treating these patients. The training is demanding, challenging and rigorous, but it serves a great purpose – to prepare the student to be able to assist athletes in getting better.

The Steps for Becoming a Sports Medicine Nurse

Practitioners in the field prepare athletes not only by treating their injuries, but they also help them prepare for longer careers by preventing future injuries and recover from past injuries. If you want to become a sports medicine nurse, you need to go through the necessary training and obtain the required qualifications. Here are the steps to get you there.

Educational Requirements

A sports medicine nurse needs a bachelor degree in a medical program. 

They can start working in the field prior to getting their BA though – in the role of a licensed practical nurse if they have a diploma in practical nursing. If you choose to pursue the latter path, you’ll learn the basics of nursing care in different settings including urgent care clinics, hospices, hospitals, and nursing homes. 

Following this, the practical nurse needs to earn an associate degree and become a registered nurse or RN. This takes two years of training.

If you want to obtain even more skills, you can enroll into a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing Degree program. This will allow you to qualify as a sports medicine nurse. The BSN programs last for 4 years and in them, students are taught patient-centered care, physical assessment, and clinical judgment.

Experience

To get a role as a sports medicine nurse, you need to have experience. More specifically, you need a minimum of 3 years of experience. You can get this experience by working in clinics helping patients recover from musculoskeletal surgeries. You can also treat patients with fractures or work as an orthopedic nurse. 

A sports medicine fellowship is an accredited program that lasts 1 year. You need to have completed residency training in one of the three fields to get this fellowship:

  • Orthopedics

  • Family medicine

  • Emergency medicine

Skills

Being a good sports medicine nurse requires more than just training and degrees. To be one, you need to possess a set of skills that help you do your job well and professionally.

For starters, you need to be a good communicator, both verbal and written. A lot of your work will be to communicate instructions to the athletes under your care. 

Next, you need empathy. This is a crucial skill for everyone employed in the healthcare system. Athletes require understanding, care, and compassion. 

Since you’ll be working with other nurses and doctors, as well as communicate with trainers, you need to be good in a team – and have a good stamina. You’ll also need specific technology skills to be able to use machinery for treating patients, as well as store information in hospital systems. 

Wrapping Up

Sports medicine nurses and athletic trainers are always in demand in the world. Athletes get hurt more often than others, and treating them is a rewarding and fulfilling career path. If you decided to pursue it, these are the steps you need to follow to get there. 

Author’s Bio

Cory Shilling is a content writer for academic purposes. This means that she crafts academic papers for students. Because of her background as an athlete and experience on the field, Cory is also a known sports journalist published on various sites.