| Context: The globalization of athletic training and therapy has emerged in recent years. In general, athletic health care is somewhat standardized in North America, specifically the United States, Canada, and in parts of Europe, while other nations/regions are slow to formalize such a position/profession in their countries. While sports medicine is not a new concept around the world, information about sports medicine professionals (SMP) is not easily identifiable. Objective: To identify formalized disciplines and expectations among sports medicine professionals in Central and South America. Design: Qualitative analysis. Setting: Document review. Participants: The study targeted 23 countries in Central and South America. Data Collection: A search was done on Google Scholar using the terms sports medicine, kinesiologist, and physiotherapy in conjunction with the name of each country. After each search, documents were considered likely relevant if the document contained information about SMP education, licensure/certification, or scope of practice. Documents that were considered likely relevant were analyzed for data collection. Government sites such as the department of labor, ministry of health and/or sport were also searched for information regarding regulation and standardization for SMP. Documents had to translate to English using the automatic function of the Internet browser. Documents also were required to have an editorial limit. Results: Through our search we were unable to find a specific discipline for SMP in Central and South America who provided athletic health care in the same way athletic trainers/therapists do. We were able to identify that sports medicine was more often a specialty area for other healthcare providers (i.e., physicians, physical therapists, kinesiologists). For example in Brazil, physiotherapy was mainly used in the treatment of sports injuries. Likewise in Ecuador, the term physiotherapy was most often associated with the terms sports or medicine in Ecuadorian national newspapers. During the World Cup in 2002, team physicians associated with each national team were asked to report injuries players sustained. These team physicians were also responsible to diagnosis concussions and determine return to play for the athletes. A second theme that emerged from the data was that of regulation by different government agencies and/or ministries. Each country in Central and South had a distinct agency related to health and/or sport. These different agencies also had individualized missions, visions, and objectives between countries. There was no standard for regulating practices of healthcare professionals amongst countries. Conclusions: It is evident that there is no discipline like Athletic Training/Therapy in Central and South America. SMPs are trained in other disciplines such as physician or physical therapist and then complete specialty certificates or join sports medicine organizations. Central and South America may be an area of potential growth for athletic training/therapy. |
