Athletic Training Program – Interview with Jessica Leupold

By Angel Jara

 

“Tell me about the Athletic Training Program?”

“So, the athletic training program is a way for people to get a foot in the door in medicine. Athletic trainers we kind of do everything so it takes four years and lots of clinical hours and then passing a test to be able to even certify as an athletic trainer. We do everything from diagnosis to prevention to rehabilitation. We literally do every aspect of medicine except for you know, surgery. We don't do that but for anyone wanting to get into any medical field, this is a good foot in the door. We do a lot of anatomy and stuff like that and then they get to use it on the athletes and then for the state competition.”

“How is your program useful to Deming High School?” “One of the best ways is for athletics. My students are helping all the athletes so they're doing treatments for the athletes. They're doing a lot of therapy with the athlete. So, a lot of the rehabs they're working with the athletes to get them better there helping them to heal so that they can be okay again.”

“How long have you been with the program?” “This is my ninth year and the program has been going for that long, but we really started into it about 5 years ago.”

“What skills do students gain from the program?” “Pretty much everything they learn how to tape pretty much everything. They learn how to do evaluations so the evaluation process you ask questions you look at the person you palpate which means you feel the person's joints and things like that and then you do special tests and you can figure out what's wrong with a person and some athletes they've learned how to do evaluations if I'm taping they've learned how to make rehab so someone's hurt they can make up an entire rehab program for them in order to get them back to play and they've turned a lot they’ve learned a lot of first day a lot of wound care type things. There's a whole lot. But they’ve learned a lot of anatomy as well and that’s a big one for anyone going into the medical field.” “What's the future of this program?” “Well, hopefully we keep going strong. last year we took third in state in the state competition, which was really cool for the first time Deming has ever placed. This year honestly, we could

take first or second and I have a kid who could who could win who could medal as an individual as well, which is really cool because we’ve never had an individual medalist.”

“What is this competition?” “So this competition will usually trade places but this year we're going in the same place as last year and that's Manzano high school. And we usually go in North school when you're in a Cell School the other, so everyone has a way to get there. But the competition is there teams of four from any school that has athletic trainer, so there's probably about. Between 60 to 90 teams every year depending on where the where the competition is located and the teams go in they compete they take this test and then they do a practical portion, so they go into a room and they have to take someone they have to do a special test. They have to do wound care. They have to pick certain part they’ll give them an anatomy piece apart piece of anatomy and they’ll have to put a dot on it. And so, they like 10 that they have to do in 2 minutes and they kind of get the high score and whoever has a high score wins.”

“How can students get involved with the athletic training program?” “The biggest thing is to come and talk to me anyone who wants to be involved in the athletic training program will have to come and talk to me and I'll give them we do you have a try out. We do have a bit of a tryout. They have to do eight different things. So they'll learn all those eight things one week look and they’ll practice in whenever they want and then the next week they'll test out on and if they test high enough, then they can be in the program and if not they won't be able to be allowed it.”

“After high school what benefits can students gain from this program looking into college?” “So I've had several people who got into some field of medicine or even some who gone into personal training and things like that who have told me that because of my class they were one of the only kids who didn't struggle in a lot of their college classes and their Anatomy classes their physiology classes in a lot of their classes about injuries they were the only ones who already knew how to do all these things and who knew what these things were and so it was a lot easier for them to get through their college because they already had a foot in the door from this and then you also get people Oscar Arroyos he's going into this. He's going to be an athletic trainer. He's going to NMSU for it and because he's competed in the state competition now, he knows the people at NMSU and so he's able to have one foot in the door there so he has he's already looking at applying and they'll already know who he is when he does apply.”

“What actions do you partake in at school activities and games?”

“Pretty much everything. We set up water for everybody to make sure that there is hydration available for everyone and then we do a lot of taping for people pregame. We do some therapy some stretching occasionally a massage which isn't a pleasant thing unfortunately and then the hardest part of athletic training is we sit and watch and hope there's not an injury and if there's an injury we rush out into action we take care of the injury. We diagnose it but we sit and hope that nothing happens. We would much rather be bored, and everyone be healthy.”

“What's different from your athletic training program from the Skills USA program or from the nursing program?” “Skills USA is mostly nursing, and nursing is a very a very specific field of medicine Athletic training is another different field. So that's like someone who does anesthesiology, which is you know, the medicine that helps put you to sleep and stuff like that versus someone who takes blood they're both valuable. They're both important are just different aspects of medicine. So that's kind of what ours is other programs deal a lot more with what nurses do and they have a fantastic program they get to go and do what nurses do which is so cool. But for my kids they get to do what Athletic trainers get to do so, we have just a different skill-set in the different aspect of Medicine.”

“Thank you that’s all the questions we have for you today.”

“Thank you guys I appreciate that”