In the sports medicine class students are taught by Mr. Ahlstrom how to identify and treat sports related injuries. Students who take his class can volunteer to attend school sporting events for the high risk and medium risk sports (football, wrestling, soccer, basketball, etc.)

Advanced students who take the sports medicine class are expected to know what to do should an injury occur during a game such as identifying where the injury occurred, what caused the injury, and what type of injury it is. Students on the sports medicine team, specifically advanced students, are allowed and expected to tape the injuries that occur during games.

“[usually it’s the more experienced who tape injuries during the games], but it’s as they practice and get better with it,” said Ahlstrom.

Students taking sports medicine can also help out after school with rehabilitation, going to practices, and shadowing professional sports medicine teams.

“They can work with any of the practices as you can see right here we’ve got a lot of students helping out doing rehab, with practices, and they’re doing a lot of activities [also attending professional sporting events and shadowing],” said Ahlstrom.

Currently there are about 80 students taking sports medicine, Ahlstrom believes that every student should take his class because it’s good to have a base understanding of the medical field and the class serves as a stepping stone into many other different medical careers such as nursing, physical therapy, chiropractics, etc.

“Everybody should take my class, it gives them a little bit more understanding about medical professions and their own bodies and builds,” said Ahlstrom. “It’s because we do a lot of stuff in class that works with different medical fields and it’s kind of a jumping, stepping stone to a lot of other careers, and so I’ve had a lot of other students that have gone off to nursing and other skilled professions.”

In sports medicine students learn about proper nutrition, appropriate caloric intake, how to properly prepare for a work out, and how to be safe while taking practice in any sport.

Students also learn about heat and cold related injuries and how to prevent them before and during workouts.

“[My hope is for students] just to learn a little bit something about the medical field,” said Ahlstrom.

Sports medicine is a year long class that can count for a health credit, and if students like the class they can take it every year of their high school career, going into advanced sports medicine which is an ideal decision for students who want to go into the medical field.

 Ahlstrom believes all students at CKHS should take sports medicine to learn more about the medical field, learning about the medical field and taking the sports medicine class opens up many more opportunities for students attending CKHS such as shadowing and future internships with professional sports medicine teams.