Sports Medicine Fellowship: Curriculum

The Cone Health Sports Medicine Fellowship provides a balanced experience, including clinical care in primary care sports medicine, orthopedics and preventive medicine. Our program helps the fellow:

• Strengthen academic skills to critically review articles, write effectively for publications and understand the basics of sports medicine research
• Maintain family practice skills while developing skills as a team physician at the collegiate and high school level

Schedule

Key components of the schedule are as follows:

• 4 half-days in the orthopedic office.
• 2 half-days in the Sports Medicine Center including fellows having their own clinic.
• 1 half-day in the Student Health Sports Medicine Clinic.
• 1 half-day Sports Medicine didactics.
• 1 Urgent Care shift (8 a.m. to 2 p.m.)
• 1 half-day elective (additional elective time when Student Health Clinic closed).

Procedure Proficiency

Procedures include the preparation of orthotics, joint injections, casting, splinting, shockwave therapy and musculoskeletal ultrasound. Each fellow completes in excess of 300 diagnostic ultrasounds and learns to use ultrasound for injections.

Elective educational experiences are available in exercise physiology, sports psychology, exercise tolerance testing and sports nutrition.

Clinical Settings

Education occurs through a variety of clinical settings, including:

• Event coverage
• Orthopedic clinics
• Physical therapy
• Primary care
• Primary care sports medicine clinics
• Radiology
• Student health sports medicine clinics
• Training room experiences

Additional coverage includes national championships and other mass events, such as cross-country invitational, wrestling tournaments and soccer tournaments that occur in the Greensboro area. Fellows may also opt to work with former fellows to provide periodic coverage of local professional sports.

To assure continuity, each fellow works primarily with one orthopedic office and is the team physician for one college and one high school.

Ultrasound Curriculum

As part of their ultrasound education, our fellows spend a significant amount of time in our ultrasound lab in downtown Greensboro at our Union Square campus (a collaborative teaching institution in Greensboro for local colleges and health systems). In July, we invite new sports medicine fellows from across the region to attend a one-day course on the introduction of ultrasound.

It is a full day of scanning which includes the EFAST exam and 68 of the most common scans that we perform in our clinics. Our fellows also spend every third Friday afternoon of each month at the lab honing their skills and, in the second half of the year, performing more advanced scans.

Scholarly Activity

During the course of the year, fellows complete some form of scholarly activity with the intent of publishing. This may be a research project, a review article, or a case report. The publication record of the program has been consistent, and each fellow has gained skills in writing, critical literature analysis and basic research.

Conferences

Fellows frequently present at local conferences, often working with fellows and faculty from other North Carolina programs. Our fellows attend the Advanced Team Physician Course and the AMSSM annual meeting. All fellows are expected to submit a case for presentation at the AMSSM meeting.

Highlights of Scholarly Activity

• Case reports and research projects for presentation at AMSSM annual meeting.
• Case submission to the Southeastern ACSM meeting.
• AMSSM annual meeting
• Advanced Team Physician Course
• Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Skills course
• Southeastern ACSM meeting (optional when not conflicting with other duties)
• Book Chapters such as in 5 minute Sports Medicine Clinical Consult

Faculty members at the Family Medicine Center assist fellows with scholarly projects.

Teaching

Videos

• Guilford College is an NCAA Division III school with approximately 2,000 students and multiple sports coverage opportunities. The Guilford College fellow works with Murphy and Wainer Orthopedics.
  Watch Video: Guilford College
• North Carolina A&T State University is a Division I school with approximately 10,000 students. The A&T fellow works with Guilford Orthopedics.
  Watch Video: A&T University
• UNC-Greensboro is a Division I school with approximately 20,000 students. Coverage is provided by the fellow who works with OrthoCare.
• Greensboro College is a Division III school of just over 1000 students. The OrthoCare fellow covers Greensboro College's football team (UNC-Greensboro does not have a football program.)

Social Media

Learn more about our fellowship experience by following us on social media.