Orthopedist Or Sports Med Dr.?

Sports Medicine is a Subspecialty of medicine and generally comes in 2 flavors...surgical or primary care.

Orthopedic physicians can do a fellowship in sports medicine and obviously focus on surgical sports medicine, but can evaluate, diagnose and prescribe apporopriate treatment for non-surgical problems as well.

Primary care sports medicine physicians are family practice, internal medicine, pediatric or emergency medicine physicians who have done a fellow ship in sports medicine. They receive training in surgical treatments by assisting in surgery and so are very familiar with what problems need to be referred to a surgeon. But in practice they obviously focus on the evaluation and treatment of non-surgical problems, or sometimes do the rehab/follow up visits post-surgery.

There are many practice models in which orthopedic & primary care sports medicine physicians are in practice together, thus having the ability to treat all comers.

Derek, I totally agree, I've got the names of a couple of Orthopedists that friends/relatives have seen, I saw the sports med option while searching and got wondering if that might be better alternative.


Sue, Thanks for the clarification, that helps.

You're welcome, but I'm not Sue, I'm Suzanne. Sue is an orthopedic sports medicine doc, the one Derek referred to, and she didn't pipe into this forum. I'm an ER doc who digs athletics, but beyond my special interest, I have no fellowship training in sports.