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Career Description

Evaluate and advise individuals to assist recovery from or avoid athletic-related injuries or illnesses, or maintain peak physical fitness. May provide first aid or emergency care.

What Job Titles Athletic Trainers Might Have

• Assistant Athletic Trainer
• Athletic Trainer
• Certified Athletic Trainer
• Head Athletic Trainer

What Athletic Trainers Do

• Evaluate athletes' readiness to play and provide participation clearances when necessary and warranted.
• Care for athletic injuries, using physical therapy equipment, techniques, or medication.
• Conduct an initial assessment of an athlete's injury or illness to provide emergency or continued care and to determine whether they should be referred to physicians for definitive diagnosis and treatment.
• Assess and report the progress of recovering athletes to coaches or physicians.
• Perform general administrative tasks, such as keeping records or writing reports.
• Apply protective or injury preventive devices, such as tape, bandages, or braces, to body parts, such as ankles, fingers, or wrists.
• Plan or implement comprehensive athletic injury or illness prevention programs.
• Collaborate with physicians to develop and implement comprehensive rehabilitation programs for athletic injuries.
• Advise athletes on the proper use of equipment.
• Travel with athletic teams to be available at sporting events.
• File athlete insurance claims and communicate with insurance providers.
• Instruct coaches, athletes, parents, medical personnel, or community members in the care and prevention of athletic injuries.
• Accompany injured athletes to hospitals.
• Inspect playing fields to locate any items that could injure players.
• Develop training programs or routines designed to improve athletic performance.
• Recommend special diets to improve athletes' health, increase their stamina, or alter their weight.
• Conduct research or provide instruction on subject matter related to athletic training or sports medicine.
• Confer with coaches to select protective equipment.
• Massage body parts to relieve soreness, strains, or bruises.
• Lead stretching exercises for team members prior to games or practices.
• Teach sports medicine courses to athletic training students.

What Athletic Trainers Should Be Good At

• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).

What Athletic Trainers Should Be Interested In

• Realistic - Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.
• Investigative - Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

What Athletic Trainers Need to Learn

• Medicine and Dentistry - Knowledge of the information and techniques needed to diagnose and treat human injuries, diseases, and deformities. This includes symptoms, treatment alternatives, drug properties and interactions, and preventive health-care measures.
• Therapy and Counseling - Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Psychology - Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
• Clerical - Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.
• Biology - Knowledge of plant and animal organisms, their tissues, cells, functions, interdependencies, and interactions with each other and the environment.
• Personnel and Human Resources - Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
• Public Safety and Security - Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.