Personal Philosophy
Dictionary.com states that philosophy is “The rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct.” Even though a philosophy is an opinion someone has, every person in the same working field would be similar. The different may be their input on their philosophy from which they have grown up by. An example of that may be the type of environment a person grew up in or the way his/her parents taught them the way of life when they was younger. Every field of study has their own personal philosophy. The one I would like to live by and use to help me get through my career successfully, is the Athletic Trainer philosophy. According to nata.org, “Athletic trainers (ATs) are healthcare professionals who collaborate with physicians. The services provided by ATs comprise prevention, emergency care, clinical diagnosis, therapeutic intervention and rehabilitation of injuries and medical conditions.” An athletic trainer is mainly working around the sports scene, but there are some who also work with the military branches, government service, industrial setting, and a couple of TV shows like the biggest loser and wrestling.
In my opinion the two significant questions a person should ask themselves about a particular career are why you want to be what you want to be and what excites me about that career. Coming into college I was a big sports type of guy. I played multiple sports in high school and enjoyed being around it. Also, I am a caring person so helping others is a big deal in my life and how I grew up. I was taught to always help others if you are capable of doing so. Being able to help someone and at the same time being around something I really love, sports, made me chose to be an athletic trainer. To me the most exciting part about being an athletic trainer is helping a person overcome an injury to get back to almost 100% healthy and becoming a mentor the to the athletes I work with during the rehabilitation process. My role as an athletic trainer is to make sure athletes are healthy when returning to play, not rushing rehab process, maintain clean environment, etc. in order for me to accomplish some of those roles the athlete has to be active during the rehab process and be patient about returning to play. The coach is the main person who’s involved through the process because some tend to put the athlete health second and winning a game first. So they have to understand to not let an injured athlete play to avoid causing more problems and a longer process.
Talking to an athletic trainer, I have learned that working on the professional level will take up all of your time from sun up to sun down, communication is the key to recover being that it is with the player, coaches, and/or physician, and be a good listener. Learning the knowledge in the previous sentence gave me some concerns. The first concern is missing family time by being at work all day. It will be hard to balance out family time with your job when you are at your job most of the day majority of the week. My Second concern is not being able to connect with the athlete, if the athlete does not listen or believe in your work than it will be difficult to get through the rehab process. My last concern is telling an athlete their career is over due to a certain injury that cannot be fixed back to a healthy stage for that sport. One of the reasons I chose this field was to help others and not being able to fully help someone continue doing what they love to do would make me feel like my job is not finish. The most important outcome in my program is to make sure every athlete return to play healthy physically and mentally. By the time the process is over I hope to have created a strong bond with the athlete and to keep in touch with them post injury. Communicating and being a good listener is key points in the field of athletic trainer. I am very good at interacting with people, so interacting with people on a daily basis would not be a problem for me. As told before by a couple of friends, they enjoy being around me so that could help in the rehab stage of returning to play. It is all about getting the job done and enjoying it while doing it. My wiliness to go out of my way to help someone will take me a long way in this field. By seeing an athlete return to play at the same level he was at before he got injured would let me know I was successful during the rehab process.