For immediate release: August 6, 2007
Contact: Emily Wofford Cobb
Communications Manager
775-784-6006
ecobb@medicine.nevada.edu
School of Medicine to offer Sports Medicine Fellowship in Reno
One applicant will be selected for new fellowship starting in 2008
RENO, Nev.—The University of Nevada School of Medicine will soon add one of the fasting growing medical specialties in the nation to its list of fellowship offerings. Beginning in July of next year, the University Student Health Center will partner with the Department of Family and Community Medicine in Reno to offer a sports medicine fellowship. Program applicants will be judged by a review panel this August and September and final selection for the program’s first fellow will be made in January. The fellowship will be the second in the discipline for the School which currently has two fellows serving in sports medicine in Las Vegas.
The program’s goal is to prepare fellows for a Certificate of Added Qualification in Sports Medicine and to train them to provide specialized care for injured athletes so they may continue to safely compete in sports. In addition to the fellow’s academic responsibilities, he or she will also serve as an official team physician for the University of Nevada, Reno athletic department and will integrate a primary care approach into sports medicine.
“We are very excited to add a sports medicine fellowship in Reno. We expect the program to benefit the School by improving residency recruiting for Family Medicine,” says Carol Scott, M.D., Sports Medicine Fellowship director and assistant director of the Student Health Center. “Our undergraduate medical students will also benefit from the program. We expect to see their musco-skeletal exam scores improve since they will have greater access to observe patients who have sports-related injuries.”
Scott, who was instrumental in securing the program’s accreditation with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), has her Certificate of Added Qualification in Sports Medicine and is board-certified in adolescent medicine and family medicine.
Each fellow will receive training for one year, from July through June, and the program has a three year accreditation cycle. The fellow will spend two and a half days treating Family Medicine patients and one half-day a week in their primary specialty. Mondays the fellow will assist training staff in the University athletics department and Wednesdays will be spent in lecture. The fellow will work with athletes to prevent injury and will assist in the treatment of acute injuries. He or she will also be trained in the use of automatic external defibrillators (AED), which are available at all University sporting events.
The program will partner with a variety of organizations throughout northern Nevada to provide fellows experience in an array of sporting events unique to the area. Partnerships include training with physicians at the Reno Orthopeadic Clinic, providing on-site care at Squaw Valley with Tahoe Truckee Medical Group to assist with ski injuries, partnering with representatives of the Special Olympics to assist athletes with disabilities and scuba training in Lake Tahoe. Additionally, the program will have an ongoing relationship with REMSA, which will provide fellows clinical access to more than 300 events in the area including the Reno Rodeo and annual Volleyball Festival.
As the state’s only public medical school, the University of Nevada School of Medicine has been meeting statewide healthcare, educational, and clinical needs since 1969. The School of Medicine encompasses 16 clinical medical education departments, including Family Medicine, Pediatrics, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Internal Medicine, Surgery, and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, as well as five nationally-recognized departments within basic science including microbiology and biomedical engineering. As the largest multi-specialty healthcare focus within the state, the School of Medicine employs more than 185 doctors who both teach and practice medicine throughout Nevada. The school’s statewide faculty physician practice group has a combined 25 different medical specialties with seven physician practice offices located in the Reno-Sparks area and five physician offices located in Las Vegas.
The University of Nevada School of Medicine utilizes a best-practice approach to medicine and is committed to addressing the health needs of Nevada now and in the future. For more information, please visit www.medicine.nevada.edu.
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