Athletic Training

Justin Rigby, ATP Program Director
Email: Justin.Rigby@health.utah.edu

Phone: (801) 213-1315

The allied health care profession of Athletic Training encompasses the prevention, examination, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of acute or chronic injuries and medical conditions. Athletic trainers (ATs) require multiple health care related skills to perform a wide-range of duties and care for various types of injuries and medical conditions.

Athletic trainers work under the direction of a physician as prescribed by state licensure or other regulation statutes. Traditionally, athletic trainers provide health care services for high school, collegiate, and professional athletes. In addition to professional, recreational and/or occupational athletes, today athletic trainers' are employed in a variety of other settings including military, public-service professions (police and fire departments), physician offices, sports medicine specialty clinics, and commercial occupational health departments (e.g. Amazon warehouses).

Athletic training professional education has chosen to move to a graduate level degree to align better with other allied health care professionals provide students with better clinical and inter-professional education experiences. Didactic and clinical learning within this program will focus on the primary domains of the AT profession: 1) injury and illness prevention, 2) examination, assessment and diagnosis, 3) immediate and emergency care, 4) therapeutic intervention, and 5) health care administration and professional responsibility. This professional program is required by the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE) and prepares students to become nationally certified athletic trainers (ATC) able to obtain state licensure and begin a successful athletic training career.

Students will need to have a completed bachelor's degree and a cumulative GPA of 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale) or higher. The cumulative GPA calculation will be based on University of Utah Office of Admissions policy.

Students must also complete the following pre-requisite courses with a grade of C or better:

• Biology - 1 semester

• Chemistry and lab - 1 semester

• Physics and lab - 1 semester

• Human Anatomy and lab - 1 semester

• Human Physiology - 1 semester

• Statistics - 1 semester

• Biomechanics - 1 semester

• Exercise Physiology - 1 semester

• Nutrition - 1 semester

• Emergency Response - 1 semester (students must enter the graduate program with a current CPR certification for healthcare professionals)

Students will also need to perform a minimum of 100 clinical observation hours with a certified athletic trainer (ATC).