Search Prisma Health Academics

Search by topic or program name.

Sports Medicine Fellowship (Primary Care) Columbia - Experience

We are a little COCKY about this opportunity for our fellows, as it is an experience like no other!

University of South Carolina mascot Cocky at football game.

University of South Carolina Coverage

The Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship Program is closely integrated with the University of South Carolina Athletics Department. USC hosts a Division I intercollegiate athletic program, including eleven women's and eight men's intercollegiate varsity athletic sports competing in the Southeastern Conference.

As team physicians for USC athletics, fellows are the first call for their team’s athletic trainers and are actively involved in the health and well-being of their athletes.

Fellows earn increasing independence and autonomy in decision-making as the fellowship year progresses, and they have the opportunity to travel with teams to tournaments, bowl games or other postseason events.

Our fellows work in the outstanding facilities that house the 19 varsity athletic programs at USC. From Williams-Brice Stadium, home of Gamecocks football, to One Wood Farms, home of our equestrian team, the sports medicine fellows are an integral part of the teams they cover.

See more USC facilities

USC athletic training rooms

Athletic training rooms across campus are within our state-of-the-art sports facilities. Our fellows work with students and faculty that are part of the University of South Carolina’s sport science programs, which are ranked number one in the U.S. on the Global Ranking of Sport Science Schools and Departments.

0:00

foreign

0:00

[Music]

0:15

Haggard I'm the head athletic trainer

0:17

for football here at the University of

0:18

South Carolina today we're going to walk

0:20

through the athletic training room and

0:21

show you what we have in here

0:24

right here in the front left we have our

0:26

recovery area with a hyperbaric Austin

0:27

chamber the massage tables and the float

0:30

tank

0:31

next we have our hydrotherapy area with

0:33

our hot and cold tubs and our rehab pool

0:35

the big tub in the back is cold that

0:38

stays about 55 degrees all the time the

0:41

smaller tub in the front is our hot tub

0:43

that's at 105 degrees there's a really

0:45

just like big jacuzzis like you would

0:47

have at home they can get in there and

0:48

Aid in their recovery process and then

0:51

the other pool that we have in here is a

0:52

swim X rehab pool so this swim X model

0:55

is made so the water flows against you

0:57

to do rehab with so we can do shoulder

1:00

rehab elbow rehab in addition to putting

1:03

guys in there and actually have them run

1:04

doing rehab next we have our rehab area

1:07

where we do everything with the guys if

1:09

something happens they get hurt some of

1:11

the highlights of this area is we've got

1:13

a treadmill with a bag around it they

1:15

can get in this treadmill we zip them

1:18

into it and then it blows up with air

1:20

and actually measures their body weight

1:21

so if they're coming back from an injury

1:23

we want them running at 50 percent of

1:25

their body weight we can program this

1:27

treadmill to actually do that treadmill

1:29

right next to it is exactly the same

1:31

same minus the bag so as we're moving

1:34

guys along in the rehab process we can

1:36

move them from this anti-gravity

1:38

treadmill onto a regular one and I'm not

1:41

actually changing the surface that

1:42

they're running on but then they're

1:43

getting sore or something like that from

1:45

it we know that it's not the actual

1:47

surface then as we move them along we

1:49

end up taking them outside and doing

1:50

various running things with them as well

1:53

then we have our treatment area right

1:55

here in the center we have different

1:56

modalities there from hot cold lasers

1:59

ultrasound whatever we need to help the

2:01

guys heal faster

2:04

finally up against the back wall here as

2:06

all of our doctor's offices they're a

2:08

full Pharmacy our medical records are

2:10

right next to that and then we have all

2:12

of our analytics so all of our guys were

2:14

a GPS data sensor on them when they're

2:17

working out and running and practicing

2:19

and so forth and so we look at that data

2:21

and that helps us from a medical

2:23

standpoint of making decisions on when

2:25

they're ready to return to play but then

2:27

from an overall program standpoint it's

2:29

giving us data on where they're at and

2:31

what we need to do and we can look at

2:33

what a guy's doing during a game and

2:35

then mirror that to practice or take

2:37

away from that a little bit if we want

2:39

to hi my name is Zoe Foster I'm the

2:41

program director for our Primary Care

2:43

Sports Medicine Fellowship I'm also the

2:44

medical director here at USC Athletics

2:46

our fellows are in the training

2:48

facilities at varying times of the day

2:50

depending on needs and what's going on

2:53

they're really engaging in our athletic

2:55

training rooms at multiple times during

2:57

the day with athletes from all of our

2:59

Varsity Sports and dealing with very

3:01

acute concerns especially if you think

3:03

about our coverage for football camp

3:05

over the summer it really gives them the

3:07

opportunity to have this hands-on

3:09

experience so here at USC we have 11

3:13

women's Varsity Sports eight men's

3:15

Varsity Sports as well as a cheerleading

3:17

program and the Carolina girls our dance

3:19

team our fellows our first call for all

3:22

of those teams their athletic trainer

3:24

gets to know them they get to know the

3:26

athletic training staff and the student

3:27

athletes that they're responsible for

3:29

taking care of here in August the

3:31

fellows will be here for a practice with

3:33

us every single day and then as we get

3:35

into the fall into the season we've got

3:37

other sports going they're going to be

3:39

around with some of our sports teams

3:41

whether it may be basketball or it might

3:43

be beach volleyball and then there's a

3:45

lot of times that I'll call and say hey

3:47

the guy hurt his hand or whatever I need

3:49

you to come look at it and the fellows

3:51

will come over here while we're out of

3:53

practice

3:54

thank you all for watching this today I

3:56

hope this showed you what we have here

3:57

at University of South Carolina and our

3:59

medical facilities in the football

4:01

building

4:03

[Music]

4:07

foreign

4:11

[Music]

English (auto-generated)

Local high school coverage

Our fellowship is committed to serving the community that we call home. Working with our partners at Prisma Health Orthopedics, our fellowship provides home and away football game coverage for three local high schools. Our fellows serve as the autonomous team physician for their assigned school and have an ongoing friendly rivalry as their high schools play each other over the course of the season.

In the winter, the fellowship provides coverage to local high school wrestling tournaments which gives the fellows an additional opportunity to manage acute dislocations, lacerations, fractures and c-spine injuries.

Local Road Races

Image of

Continuing our commitment to serving our community, the fellows, in partnership with Drayer Physical Therapy, serve as medical directors for local road races within the Midlands. In prior years, you’d find us at the finish line tent for the RunHard Columbia Marathon. More recently, we have covered the Governor’s Cup half marathon. Our program is willing to pitch in wherever we are needed.

Ultrasound opportunities

Sports medicine doctor working with trainee on ultrasound machine.

Our fellows attend the Gulf Coast Ultrasound Institute’s MSK course in August of their fellowship year in order to ensure a solid basis in ultrasound technique. They work one on one with an RMSK trained faculty member throughout the year to refine their ultrasound skills.

Fellows use ultrasound for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes on a daily basis regardless of where their clinical assignment finds them, be it in the Family Medicine Center, at Student Health, or in the orthopedic clinics. Fellows assist in teaching MSK ultrasound to local physicians as part of the CME courses offered by the Ultrasound Institute at USC.

Columbia City Ballet

Columbia City Ballet performs at the Koger Center in Columbia, South Carolina.

Fellows volunteer their time to cover performances for the Columbia City Ballet at the Koger Center on USC’s campus. They work with the company’s athletic trainer to provide care for these athletes backstage as needed throughout the performance season.

Columbia Fireflies

Aerial view of Segra Park, Columbia Fireflies baseball.

The Fireflies are the Kansas City Royals’ low-A minor league baseball team located here in Columbia. Fellows have the opportunity to provide PPEs and event coverage during their fellowship year.

Teaching

Teaching is a big part of our fellowship program. Our fellows teach medical students rotating on their sports medicine elective and family medicine residents on their MSK rotations. Fellows are part of the annual family medicine didactic series and put on an annual casting-and-splinting workshop for our family medicine residency program.

The fellows are guest lecturers in the masters level and post-professional level athletic training programs at USC, teaching on topics like injections and suturing, performing and reading EKGs, and x-ray interpretation. Fellows are responsible for our weekly didactic sessions, teaching their peers and faculty. Fellows graduate with a collection of presentations that they can build on and update in their future careers.

Conferences

In addition to presenting their cases at the AMSSM annual meeting, our fellows attend several other conferences to build their sports medicine knowledge and to network with colleagues.

In July, we partner with other fellowship programs in the southeast at the annual Fellowship Conclave to kick off the fellowship year. In August, our fellows attend the Gulf Coast Ultrasound Institute’s MSK course. In December, we attend the ACSM’s Advanced Team Physician course and the Summit of the Carolinas in Greenville with our regional program colleagues.

Fellowship family

At South Carolina, we are led by a small group of core fellowship faculty. Because of the size of our program, fellows and faculty get to know each other on a personal level.

We strive to offer a caring, personable learning environment built around mutual respect and camaraderie to help our fellows grow and thrive over the course of their fellowship year.