Geisinger Health System announces first accredited Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship in Northeastern Pennsylvania

WILKES BARRE-Geisinger Health System has announced the establishment of northeastern Pennsylvania’s first accredited Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship.
    “The purpose of the Fellowship is to provide physicians with advanced education in diagnosing and caring for sports related injuries,” said David S. Ross, MD, FACP, Director of the Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship. “The highlight of the program will be the intense, extensive training that each Fellow will receive in various medical settings. They will emerge from the program highly qualified to treat a wide range of injuries, and will prove to be a valuable addition to the Geisinger sports medicine team.”
    The one-year Fellowship program, slated to begin in July 2007, will include training and direct patient care in the sports medicine clinic, rotations in the emergency department and primary care clinics, and training room visits to contracted high schools in Wilkes-Barre, Wyoming Seminary Preparatory School, College Misericordia, and Wilkes University. Fellows will have additional educational experiences through involvement with area sports teams like the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Pioneers Arena Football Team, and through various community events. The program is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).
    Training will include instruction in the non-operative management of musculoskeletal conditions, management of chronic or acute conditions affecting performance, traumatic brain injury, concussion management and other sports-inflicted head injuries, and determining whether patients are ready to “return to play.”
Fellows will also be trained in injury prevention, ergonomics and healthy lifestyles, nutrition and eating disorders, skin disorders, pre-participation physical examinations, exercise prescription, conditioning programs, and various exercise protocols.
Candidates with backgrounds in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Family Medicine, and Emergency Medicine are currently being interviewed for admission into the program.
“The fact that there are only about 100 other accredited programs of this kind in the nation demonstrates how progressive this fellowship is,” said Dr. Ross. “It also illustrates how committed Geisinger Health System is to providing its patients with the highest quality Sports Medicine care the region has to offer.”
Dr. Ross joined the Geisinger Wyoming Valley sports medicine team in October 2006. He is a graduate of the University of Miami and earned his Medical Degree at Hahnemann University School of Medicine in Philadelphia. Dr. Ross is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine with a Certificate of Additional Qualification in Primary Care Sports Medicine, and has served many amateur and professional sporting circuits including cycling, boxing, golf, wrestling, weightlifting, figure skating and rodeo.

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