Sports Medicine Degrees, Courses and Programs

Sports medicine is a field of practice, not a single degree. Physicians specialise in sport and exercise medicine after medical school and postgraduate training. Alongside them, physiotherapists, athletic trainers, dietitians and psychologists work as part of a sports medicine team, each with their own qualifications.

University programs that carry “sports medicine” in the title are usually postgraduate degrees or certificates in an area such as musculoskeletal health, rehabilitation or exercise as medicine, and they are open to a defined range of prior qualifications. Some are intended for registered clinicians; others are academic and open to science graduates.

Because the title can suggest clinical authority it does not confer, each listing states the intended audience and whether prior professional registration is required.

Typical topics: Musculoskeletal injury, Exercise as medicine, Clinical assessment, Rehabilitation, Sports cardiology, Team medical care.

Also called: Sport and exercise medicine, Sportmedizin, Médecine du sport, Medicina deportiva. These names lead to this one page.

Qualifying as a physician requires medical school and specialist training. A sports medicine degree or certificate for non-physicians is a postgraduate academic or continuing-education award; it does not make anyone a physician.

Each program below states its intended audience, whether prior professional registration is required, and links to current official requirements where we found them.

• Level 1 Sports Trainer (Allied Health) (Sports Medicine Australia): First aid HLTAID003 or HLTAID011 within 3 years; CPR HLTAID009 within 12 months; transcript showing at least 12 months full-time study or a completed degree in a listed allied health field.
• Sports and Exercise Medicine (M.Sc.) (Trinity College Dublin): Open to graduates from medicine and physiotherapy; UK/EU applicants need an NFQ Level 8 degree at 2.1 or equivalent; non-EU applicants need a first-class honours degree and 2 years of postgraduate clinical experience
• BSc (Hons) Sports Therapy (Hartpury University): 112 UCAS tariff points, to include Biology, Sport or PE.
• Sport & Exercise Science & Medicine PgDip (online distance learning) (University of Glasgow): 2.2 Hons (or non-UK equivalent) in a listed field such as Sport and Exercise Sciences, Physiotherapy, Medicine
• Sport & Exercise Science & Medicine PgCert (online distance learning) (University of Glasgow): 2.2 Hons (or non-UK equivalent) in a listed field such as Sport and Exercise Sciences, Physiotherapy, Medicine