Curriculum

AT 780 – Occupational Athletic Training

The OAT Core will require students to enroll in a course specifically developed to prepare them for a career in occupational health and safety. This course will focus on athletic trainers’ roles and responsibilities working in an occupational setting. This course is set up to cover three key areas to facilitate Athletic Trainers contributing to workplace safety: 1) Policies related to Injury management in the workplace. 2) Ergonomic and Functional Capacity Assessment. 3) Prevention and Intervention strategies to mitigate the occurrence of musculoskeletal injuries in the workplace.  This course will use Athletic Trainers’ skills in assessing and returning athletes to participation efficiently and apply these skills to the workplace environment. The work environment operates under specific rules and regulations that are unique and must be understood to function effectively. Developing skills to facilitate communication between the occupational health team, federal agencies, and the employer will be discussed. This course will educate athletic training students to evaluate functional job demands and the functional capacity of the worker. This course will also provide tools to facilitate the prevention and minimization of injury risk by identifying unsafe body mechanics, unsafe environment, and to maintain overall good physical and mental worker health.

Additional  Available Elective Courses

OAT students will be able to enroll in any of the other CARERC core classes as well as other Athletic Training specific elective courses offered by the department.  This full range of options and electives will allow the students to create a tailored education specific to their career goals.

Example Schedule:

Additional Elective Courses Offered to OAT students:

CLINICAL AND RESEARCH ENGAGEMENT

A keystone feature of successful advanced education in allied health professions is through hands-on experience through clinical and research engagement opportunities for students. The students rolling in this graduate certificate program and the OAT track will already be certified athletic trainers, and in some cases, have years of clinical experience as part of a sports medicine team. To provide them with guided experience to the new clinical environment of occupational safety and health the OAT core has already partnered with local occupational safety and health employers that have agreed to provide this clinical experience. These partners include Premise Healthcare (contracted services to Toyota Motor Company, Georgetown, KY) and the Lexington Fire Department. Members of these organizations are also part of the OAT core external advisory committee (Appendix 9B). This external advisory committee has been instrumental with aiding in the preparation of the Occupational Athletic Training course and providing continuing evaluation and guidance on a yearly basis. Because students in the OAT core will be working under these advisory members they can receive targeted feedback on the effectiveness of the didactic and clinical components to strengthen the programs’ ability to train qualified, employable candidates. Both the academic and clinical advisors will work together to guide the students to individualize their Graduate Certificate training and elective course selection to best accomplish their career goals and provide successful training.