Sports Medicine Fellowships

Developing Tomorrow’s Leading Specialists

At Vanderbilt, we offer two distinct but fully integrated and collaborative sports medicine fellowships. Both ACGME-accredited programs are designed to provide our fellows experience caring for athletes of all ages and levels of competition. 

Our Orthopedic Sports Medicine and Shoulder Surgery Fellowship is designed to produce academic leaders by teaching the operative and nonoperative aspects of sports medicine. We also strive to mentor our fellows’ academic careers with instruction in research, teaching and leadership.

Our Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship focuses on nonoperative aspects of sports medicine including musculoskeletal ultrasound and patient care in clinic and on the sidelines.

Positions: 4 Fellows
Duration: 1 or 2 years, August 1st through July 31st
Stipend: PGY6 or PGY7 level
Location: Vanderbilt University Medical Center


Official Sports Team Physicians

As a sports medicine fellow, you’ll be part of the official sports medicine team for the: 

  • Nashville Predators (National Hockey League)
  • Nashville Soccer Club (Major League Soccer)
  • Nashville Sounds (Milwaukee Brewers Major League Baseball affiliate)
  • Vanderbilt University NCAA Division I Athletics
  • Metro Nashville Public Schools 
  • Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association

Research Opportunities 

Fellows are expected to learn how to conduct and interpret sports medicine research. A variety of opportunites to conduct research are available, including:

MOON and MARS Projects

Our faculty lead three large, multicenter, National Institutes of Health-funded studies that measure the short and long-term outcomes for patients with specific knee or shoulder injuries. These research efforts assess patient outcomes for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstructions, rotator cuff repairs, shoulder instability surgery, and revision ACL surgery.

The MOON Knee Group studies the outcomes of ACL reconstructions in more than 3,500 patients.

The MOON Shoulder Group studies both nonoperative and surgical treatment of  rotator cuff tears, and surgical outcomes of shoulder instability.

The Multicenter ACL Revision Study (MARS) studies patients who need revision ACL surgery. We currently track more than 1,200 patients. Learn about our study:

Additional Research Projects 

Our faculty are engaged in a number of other research areas including:


Education

Our educational curriculum includes;

  • Weekly Evidence based sports medicine conferences
  • Musculoskeletal ultrasound 
  • Musculoskeletal radiology and clinical correlation conference
  • Value-Based care approach to care lectures
  • Fellow Text Review of topics outside the realm of clinical sports medicine