UW Offers New Athletic Training Education Program

April 27, 2005 -- A newly-accredited athletic training education program at the University of Wyoming will help prepare students to heal the bumps and bruises that are often a part of sports.

The program, approved in March by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs, combines classroom education with hands on training.

"This [accredited] program is in response to a national call for more formal training programs to help boost enrollment," says Mark Byra, professor and director of the UW College of Health Sciences Division of Kinesiology and Health. "Previously, many athletic training programs were internships that emphasized practical experience but weren't particularly stringent. Having a defined curriculum gives us more quality control."

William Lyons, a certified athletic trainer who directs the UW program, says the academic or preprofessional portion takes four semesters to complete. During that time, classes focus on athletic training subjects such as injury prevention, emergency care, evaluations, and entry level clinical rotations. Lyons says other classes focus specifically on core kinesiology knowledge, such as anatomy, physiology, and biomechanics.

The professional phase of the program, which also takes four semesters to complete, allows students to practice the knowledge and skills they've learned in the classroom in "real life" sports settings, Lyons says.

"Students will participate on and off campus in several expanded clinical rotations so they can gain experience with different sports and under different situations," he says. "These rotations include upper and lower body sports and equipment intensive sports, as well as surgical observation and general medical training."

Once students earn their bachelor's degrees, they are qualified to take the athletic training certification exam. If they pass the exam, Lyons says program graduates can work in a variety of jobs -- as college and secondary school athletic trainers, sports medicine practitioners, and athletic trainers for physicians or private corporations.

Byra says UW's athletic training education program currently has 48 majors, 18 enrolled in the program's upper division level (the last two years of the program) and 30 in the lower division level (the first two years of the program). He says the students "come from all over the region," including Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and the Midwest. Approximately two thirds of the students are women.

"We are now one of the few universities in the Rocky Mountain region with NCAA Division I programs that have an accredited athletic training program, so we expect our enrollment to increase," Byra says.

Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2005