The Saint Vincent Sports Medicine Fellowship incorporates a longitudinal curriculum structure. We believe this offers our fellows a number of important educational advantages.
The longitudinal structure optimizes continuity of care. The fellow can be present through the entire course of an injury or problem. The fellow is part of the initial diagnostic evaluation, helps to formulate a treatment plan, and can be present for follow-up visits to assess response to the initial treatment plan and can be part of return-to-play decisions.
This structure optimizes working relationships with the faculty. The fellow can see patients with the same faculty members on a weekly basis. This allows the fellow and faculty members to develop close working relationships, which allows the faculty a better chance to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the fellows. The regular interaction offers the faculty the opportunity to provide individualized instruction to fellows to improve their skills during the course of their fellowship. The increased trust that comes from this relationship also enables the fellow to have greater participation in clinical decision-making over the course of their training.
A longitudinal structure also allows us to take advantage of multiple clinical teaching sites. Each of these sites provides exposure to a different mix of patients but all provide invaluable clinical experience. Fellows spend time every week at Saint Vincent Sports Medicine, the Penn State Behrend training room, their own high school training room and the Sports Medicine Clinic at the Family Medicine Residency Program. This experience allows the fellow to feel at home working in each of these sites while offering variety in what the fellow sees on a daily basis. The fellows receive exposure to competitive college athletes, high school athletes, active wellness-minded adults, as well as common orthopedic conditions seen in a primary care practice.
There are also opportunities to work in more acute care settings. The fellows' own continuity clinic occurs at Penn State Behrend’s student health office. The student health setting offers the fellows the opportunity to further develop their ability to diagnose and treat acute medical and musculoskeletal problems typically seen in a primary care office. Supervision is provided by faculty from the Family Medicine Residency and Sports Medicine Fellowship.
The fellows also work with orthopedic surgeons in staffing the hospital’s Ortho Returns clinic where patients seen overnight in the Saint Vincent Emergency Department for musculoskeletal injuries are brought back to the ED for re-evaluation and possible further intervention. The fellows get hands-on experience with casting and injury management.
While the foundation of our curriculum is longitudinal experience, if fellows are interested in a concentrated experience in a specific area or would like additional exposure to associated specialties, (PM & R, pain management, PT, etc.), special arrangements can be made to accommodate individual interests.