American Medical Society for Sports Medicine
For Immediate Release Apr 16, 2019

Dr. Chad Carlson Assumes AMSSM Presidency with Track Record of Service, Advocacy

HOUSTON, Texas — Chad Carlson, MD was installed on April 16, 2019 as President of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine during its 28th Annual Meeting in Houston, TX. Dr. Carlson is a board-certified Sports Medicine physician currently practicing at Stadia Sports Medicine in West Des Moines, Iowa.

His advocacy efforts have been especially vital to the organization since joining in 1997. Dr. Carlson helped write the bill that would become the Sports Medicine Licensure Clarity Act, which originally was introduced to Congress in December 2013. After seven years of work gaining support for it, the bill was signed into law Oct. 5, 2018 by President Donald Trump.

Dr. Carlson also possesses a commitment to outreach and Christian mission work, as evidenced by his travels to Haiti, as well as Iten, Kenya, to help initiate the development of a sports medicine program for disadvantaged athletes.

“AMSSM has given me a forum to gain practice insights from colleagues around the country,” Dr. Carlson said. “It has allowed me to give back to the specialty through committee service and by helping AMSSM establish a presence in the world of governmental advocacy.

“These are exciting times for sports medicine in general and AMSSM in particular, and I look forward to helping us move into the future.”

Dr. Carlson has a long history of taking care of a wide array of athletes over his career.  He has served as team physician at the University of Illinois and Ball State University, and has been involved in high school athletic event coverage for many years. He has covered national championship events for U.S. Gymnastics and U.S. Swimming and Diving.  In Des Moines, he has provided sideline coverage for the Des Moines Menace semi-professional soccer team. 

His clinical interests include identifying the biomechanical basis for patient injury, office-based injury care/arthritis care, and clinical exercise testing, including the diagnosis and management of exercise-induce asthma and laryngeal dysfunction. He has published clinical articles on various sports medicine subjects and has spoken on many subjects at national sports medicine meetings.

Over the past 20 years, Dr. Carlson has presented at various meetings, has served on the Public Relations, Economics, Program and Ultrasound Committees, Quality Measure Subcommittee, has coordinated multiple pre-conferences, assisted with ICLs and served on various task forces.

From 2009 to 2013, he served as a member of the AMSSM Board of Directors, and took over from Past President Chris Madden, MD as Chair the Economics Committee. During his tenure, he expanded the direction of the committee into areas of public policy, leading to the name change of the committee to Practice and Policy. As chair, he wrote legislation that eventually became the Sports Medicine Licensure Clarity Act.

As the Incoming President, Dr. Carlson has served on the Executive Committee the past two years and has played a vital role in developing AMSSM’s new branding and marketing campaign, along with a multitude of projects that will shape the organization well into the future.

“If I bring anything to this organization, it is the perspective gained by running an independent sports medicine practice for 13 years,” Dr. Carlson said. “Maneuvering a business through the economic downturns we’ve seen, as well as through the sea changes in medicine that have occurred over the last decade, is no small task, and hopefully my experiences will be of use to this organization in the year ahead.”