American Medical Society for Sports Medicine
For Immediate Release May 04, 2017

AMSSM Releases Position Statement on Fellowship Standards of Excellence

LEAWOOD, KS — The American Medical Society for Sports Medicine is pleased to announce the release of the Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship: AMSSM Proposed Standards of Excellence Position Statement.

Primary care sports medicine fellowship programs are designed to provide comprehensive training in preventing and treating musculoskeletal and non-musculoskeletal conditions in athletes and active individuals. A high-quality education should be the goal of all fellowship programs.

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) provides the foundation of minimum standards to accredit training programs. However, there are currently no criteria established to describe benchmarks for quality improvement or standards with which to achieve excellence. The purpose of this Position Statement is to outline a vision with targets for fellowship programs to aim for the highest level in their educational training program.

The position statement is concurrently being published by the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine and the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

“We believe the document is comprehensive in scope and offers suggestions for improvements in fellowship course curriculum. Recommendations for clinical encounters and procedural training will be particularly useful for program faculty. The provided checklist is meant to provide guidance during annual program,” says Irfan Asif, MD, the lead author of the position statement. “This is not meant as a requirement list that all programs must meet to be considered excellent, as every program will have its own strengths. The goal of this document is to provide guidance and examples of what programs can do to enhance areas they may choose to improve.”

The position statement can be viewed by visiting the AMSSM website, http://www.amssm.org/Publications.html.

AMSSM members Mark Stovak, MD, Tracy Ray, MD and Amanda Weiss-Kelly, MD also served as co-authors on the position statement.

To schedule an interview with Dr. Asif and/or other members of the writing group, contact Communications Manager Andy Meyer at 913-327-1415, ext. 57.

About the AMSSM: AMSSM is a multi-disciplinary organization of sports medicine physicians dedicated to education, research, advocacy and the care of athletes of all ages. The majority of AMSSM members are primary care physicians with fellowship training and added qualification in sports medicine who then combine their practice of sports medicine with their primary specialty. AMSSM includes members who specialize solely in non-surgical sports medicine and serve as team physicians at the youth level, NCAA, NFL, MLB, NBA, WNBA, MLS and NHL, as well as with Olympic teams. By nature of their training and experience, sports medicine physicians are ideally suited to provide comprehensive medical care for athletes, sports teams or active individuals who are simply looking to maintain a healthy lifestyle. www.amssm.org.