Mitigating Secondary Loss is something that hits home for me. Bubba Wilson has taken his role with ATsCare to another level. We recap the summer and one of the best CEU talks I have ever heard.
LEADS Academy was created to build foundational leadership and empower the next generation of leaders in the Michigan Athletic Trainers Society. Jacob Ortega-Schultz and Courtney Lewis join me live at MATS 2024.
Brian Parker spoke for an hour at the Michigan Athletic Trainers Society annual meeting. Energy drinks, stimulants, drugs and the need to educate athletes.
Taylor took anabolic steroids to get bigger faster stronger.
He quit cold turkey and that lead him to depression and he chose to take his life.
Brian speaks at a lot of regional meetings and would love to come share Taylor story with your group.
3 questions to ask:
1. Contains banned substances?
2. Am I using it properly?
3. Is it necessary?
Just one energy drink can hurt your blood vessel function.
Quality improvement project on how I spent my time.
Why did these need to be established?
As a young professional, I hadn’t yet learned what I needed. It took a lot of self-awareness and reflection to understand my own needs so that I could practice putting boundaries in place.
Walk us through some of these Professional Boundaries conversations.
Self-awareness is a journey. It doesn’t end, it’s continual and ever-changing.
Tuning into self in each moment will help to outline needs that can be met.
It is your ownership of that, responsibility that matters. Take action for yourself, no one else will.
What are some of the boundaries you see other Athletic Trainers needing help with?
I hear ATs talk about being taken advantage of, lowest paid, constantly overworked, etc. The story feels redundant at this point. I wish more ATs felt empowered to change their own script. If you’re burnt out, who has the power to change that? Stop pointing fingers at the system and start being an agent of change.
Establishing boundaries helps create life balance. What does life balance look like for you currently?
For me right now, I love my work but it’s definitely not what I spend most of my time or energy on. Some might scoff at that, but truly it’s been a process of shifting the scales so that I came first. My body, my mental health, my spirit, and then my family friends pets.. it took a lot of practice and still does (every day) of ensuring that my cup is full so I can give.
I love Financial Peace University and we are debt-free including the house. How do you think finances play into life balance?
I also love the messages about financial peace. Finances play a big role in this balance.
It can be tough… I was an AT with a Masters salaried working 60+ hrs a week and paid under $40k. I had 3 job offers in the same week and that was the highest… needless to say I lived paycheck to paycheck for a long time, feeling totally stuck. Eventually, I moved to working 5-6 jobs at any time to get “unstuck” but then found myself burnt out. I’m sure this story is familiar.
I decided to put energy into one place. For me, that was starting my small business. This created freedom of my time which is actually the most valuable. Long story short, this journey brought me to where I am now. And I still have multiple sources of income but it’s much more harmonious.
I think for ATs the balance of life and work does revolve a lot around money. I think we need to talk about it more often. We need to justify and prove our worth not just “say” it.
IMG Academy offers opportunities for Athletic Trainers different from most secondary settings. Kaitlyn Deshaies and Jared White share what life is like at IMG.
Kaitlyn, how did you get into Athletic Training, and what led you to IMG?
I was an injured athlete in high school.
I met an AT while traveling with the team and knew Athletic Training was what I was meant to do.
Jared, How did you get into Athletic Training
Planned to go to med school and do orthopedics because I loved being in and around sports.
A random guy was sitting behind our bench with a little black bag and I started asking questions about him and what he did.
I had zero previous experience with Athletic Trainers.
Went to Anderson State University then transferred back to middle Tennessee State
Worked with Vanderbilt
GA at Auburn
Season intern with the KC Chiefs
Became the head AT for the KC Brigade Arena football
Became head AT in Nashville at a D2 school for about 7 years.
At the interview, I loved the IMG academy environment and leadership.
The academy has a boarding school with the traditional student life.
We do not have tryouts, but we have 12 support teams for the one baseball director.
We also have campers throughout the year.
Many pro teams use our campus as an off-season host site.
We are a for-profit business.
We have a very diverse population of TV Stars, a 10-year-old tennis player who is the son of an Abu Dhabi prince, professional athletes, and working-class athletes.
Wayne said there are a lot of unique growth opportunities for an AT at IMG. Can you explain?
You may have a camper here for a week or a student with a torn ACL.
Our ATs have a lot of physician interaction and see a lot of injuries.
Both Kaitlyn and Jared have been forced to grow.
As a for-profit business, we have to help the company make money.
Personal and professional growth.
We are focused on customer experience. Our staff has to understand the ins and outs of the business.
We are housed in a building that houses strength coaches, nutritionists, mental health specialists, leadership and character development, and sports science and data analytics.
We get to work with a lot of sponsors like Gatorade or Under Armor.
IMG Academy’s summer hires are looking for a staffer who can be part of our team in the future.
A good candidate needs to be a part of the team and do the same tasks as the full-time staff.
You do need to be an LAT to work in Florida.
We started the growth summit where we host an entire week of education for our AT staff.
