Sport, Exercise, and Health: Exploring Sports Medicine

Sport and exercise medicine is a body of knowledge at the interface between function and performance, health and competition. For this reason, the clinical practice of sports medicine is a high-stakes endeavor that aims to balance health and ethical concerns with the demands inherent in sport. For many, sports medicine is understood to be a specialized service provided to elite athletes. While sports medicine had its origins in providing care to elite and professional athletes, medical advances developed in treating these athletes can also exert a profound effect on the nature and quality of care provided to the broader, noncompetitive community. The most powerful contribution from sports medicine has yet to be made: the public-health mandate to harvest the knowledge and resources associated with the medical care of elite athletes on behalf of a much broader population. Topics covered in this seminar include musculoskeletal injuries, medical conditions associated with sport and exercise, exercise and health, ethics, coaching, women's issues, and human performance. The material presented will involve actual cases, lectures, debates, presentations, and discussion. An emphasis is placed on critical thinking.

This course fulfills the second-level Writing and Rhetoric Requirement (WRITE-2) and will emphasize oral and multimedia presentation.