Jan 29, 2015Clock is Ticking for Athletic Training Re-Certification
If you’re a certified athletic trainer whose last name begins with the letter A through G and was certified in 2006 or earlier, the Board of Certification (BOC) is giving you until Dec. 31, 2009 to report continuing education material in order to maintain your certification. Even if your last name does not fall within the first eight letters of the alphabet, you are not off the hook. Athletic trainers with last names ending in H through O have until December 2010, and letters P through Z have until December 2011 to complete reporting of their recertification requirements.
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While the process of recertification is time-sensitive, the BOC offers a number of ways an ATC can meet the four-part requirement in a timely fashion, including earning the minimum 75 continuing education units. But why is certification important in the first place, and is it really necessary?
In short, certification is very much necessary and important to maintain. The number one priority for athletic trainers, says Dr. Rod Walters, former Assistant Athletic Director for Sports Medicine at the University of South Carolina and a 2005 inductee into the NATA Hall of Fame, is to protect the public–and ensuring the public’s safety is the reason why 43 states currently require practicing athletic trainers to hold BOC-approved registration and licenses.
The BOC is chosen as the accrediting body of athletic training because its principle requirements uphold the profession’s exacting role in sports medicine. Athletic training encompasses not only the rigorous disciplines of anatomy, biomechanics, exercise physiology, nutrition, and psychology, but it also facilitates the athlete’s complete injury management, from the prevention, evaluation, and treatment of an injury to the administering and adherence to safety guidelines of rehabilitative care and well-being.
Understanding the magnitude of these disciplines plus being skilled in the manner to best carry out these tasks is not something neither the public nor the BOC take lightly, especially with the nuances technology proffers the sports medicine industry.
So, to ensure yourself, your athletes, your administrators, and fellow allied health professionals of the seriousness that it takes to work in sports medicine, why chance not being certified?
Visit Training & Conditioning to learn more about athletic training certification options.
