Premier league doctor

As a school kid, seeing classmates with their wrists in plaster and knees in support bandages following an over-enthusiastic game of football, you might have presumed that most doctors spend most of their time dealing with the breaks and sprains of sporting injuries. The reality couldn't be more different. Since sports medicine is not yet recognised by the royal colleges as a specialty in its own right in the United Kingdom, few doctors practise it on a full time basis.1

Hopefully, this is set to change over the next few years, as politicians are starting to listen to the sports doctors' campaign. As an increasing number of professional sports teams are demanding specialist medical care--evident from the establishment of centres of excellence around the country--a specialty that was once little more than a part time “hobby” is set to become a bona fide career in its own right.