Athletic Trainer
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.
How much education and experience would I need for this career?
These jobs typically require at least a Bachelor's Degree.
A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.
Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.
Would I like this career?
If you're one of the following types of people, you would probably like this career!
- Realistic - You like work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. You enjoy dealing with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. You enjoy outside work. Often you tend not to like occupations that mainly involve doing paperwork or working closely with others.
- Investigative - You like work activities that have to do with ideas and thinking more than with physical activity. You like to search for facts and figure out problems mentally rather than to persuade or lead people.
- Social - You like work activities that assist others and promote learning and personal development. You prefer to communicate more than to work with objects, machines, or data. You like to teach, to give advice, to help, or otherwise be of service to people.
Determine Your Personality Types
The personality types described in the above section are based on the Holland RIASEC Codes. To find out what type you are, you can take this simple test, or download a more complex interest profiler from O*NET Online. Once you know your primary and secondary personality types, come on back to find the best career in health care for you!
What kinds of things would I do on a daily basis?
- 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.
- Care for athletic injuries, using physical therapy equipment, techniques, or medication.
- Evaluate athletes' readiness to play and provide participation clearances when necessary and warranted.
- Apply protective or injury preventive devices, such as tape, bandages, or braces, to body parts, such as ankles, fingers, or wrists.
- Assess and report the progress of recovering athletes to coaches or physicians.
- Collaborate with physicians to develop and implement comprehensive rehabilitation programs for athletic injuries.
- Advise athletes on the proper use of equipment.
- Plan or implement comprehensive athletic injury or illness prevention programs.
- Develop training programs or routines designed to improve athletic performance.
- Travel with athletic teams to be available at sporting events.
- Instruct coaches, athletes, parents, medical personnel, or community members in the care and prevention of athletic injuries.
- Inspect playing fields to locate any items that could injure players.
- Massage body parts to relieve soreness, strains, or bruises.
- Perform team support duties, such as running errands, maintaining equipment, or stocking supplies.
- Perform general administrative tasks, such as keeping records or writing reports.
- File athlete insurance claims and communicate with insurance providers.
- Teach sports medicine courses to athletic training students.
What skills would I need to be successful in this career?
- Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
- Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
- Writing - Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
- Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
- Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
- Active Learning - Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
- Learning Strategies - Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
- Monitoring - Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
- Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
- Coordination - Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
- Persuasion - Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
- Instructing - Teaching others how to do something.
- Service Orientation - Actively looking for ways to help people.
- Complex Problem Solving - Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
- Quality Control Analysis - Conducting tests and inspections of products, services, or processes to evaluate quality or performance.
- Judgment and Decision Making - Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
- Systems Analysis - Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
- Systems Evaluation - Identifying measures or indicators of system performance and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.
- Time Management - Managing one's own time and the time of others.