Residency in Sports Physical Therapy
Develop your skills to be an effective member within the athlete’s interdisciplinary team
A sports physical therapy residency is an advanced post professional training program that incorporates advanced skills training, didactic learning, and acute injury and clinical patient management to prepare the physical therapist for specialized care of the athlete. Our sports physical therapy residency program focuses on preparing the physical therapist to be a part of and effective in the sports interdisciplinary team.
Our residency, officially accredited in 2020, has successfully graduated each of our sports residents (3/3). Information on board examination pass rate will be provided when available.
Our residency Financial Fact Sheet can be Accessed Here
Where you will grow and learn
The residency experience
The core of your experience is clinical care within the UIC Physical Therapy Faculty Practice alongside UIC clinical faculty. Our clinical faculty is diverse with different interests and specializations to provide diverse perspectives and skill sets.
In addition to clinical care, your life will be integrated into UIC athletics including time spent learning from and working with highly accomplished orthopaedic physicians and surgeons, athletic trainers, and strength and conditioning professionals.
This educational experience will develop and test your ability as a clinician, educator, and researcher, to prepare you to be effective physical therapist within the athlete interdisciplinary team.
Your time in residency will be packed with didactic learning and mentoring. Weekly ½ hour blocks following evaluations ensure dedicated real time feedback. Weekly skills labs are conducted by experts in their respective areas. In addition to joint-by-joint orthopaedic and manual therapy content, examples of specific didactic topics we will cover include but are not limited to:
- Sport Nutrition
- Acute injury and training room care management for the athlete
- Return to play
- Equipment Safety and Environmental Conditions
- Medical screening
- Advanced performance training and testing for the athlete
- Working effectively as a PT within the athlete interdisciplinary team
Academic track options
Contribute to research in UIC’s state-of-the-art labs, or pursue a clinical educator track, which trains you to teach physical therapy students. Completing the residendy program will earn you a graduate certificate in clinical research or clinical education, comprising 20 graduate credits that can be applied toward a PhD.
Clinical Educator Track
Under the mentorship of a senior core faculty member, the clinical educator track teaches you to become a more effective clinical educator for physical therapy students. You’ll enroll in Special Topics in Rehabilitation: Teaching and Education Development. If you’re interested in enhancing your communication skills or see yourself moving into a more formal educational role in the future, this is the right track for you.
Clinical Research Track
The clinical research track teaches you how to participate in clinical research trials, working through developing the investigation, obtaining IRB approval, subject consent, data collection, and abstract/manuscript preparation and submission. You’ll enroll in Research in Rehabilitation Sciences, where you’ll work with a faculty member to conduct independent research in one area of rehabilitation sciences.
What to expect
Our program is a rigorous 13-month program including, but not limited to:
- >100 hours of direct 1:1 mentoring
- >1,500 hours of clinical care for the athletic patient
- Weekly clinical reasoning sessions with faculty
- Monthly presentations on critically appraised topics
- Advanced didactic and skills training
- Participation in research
- Teaching opportunities at the undergraduate, DPT and post-professional level
- Physician shadowing and surgical observation
- On field and training room care of athletes alongside licensed athletic trainers
- Integration with strength and conditioning
Program Completion Requirements
Sports Residency and Mentorship (All residents complete these tasks regardless of track selection)
- 35 hours per week devoted to clinical care
- >100 hours of direct patient care mentoring with clinical faculty
- >50 hours of non-patient care mentoring with clinical faculty
- At least 200 hours of athletic venue coverage
- At least 50 of the 200 hours must be in contact sports
- 50 of the 200 hours may be in training room
- Attend all skills labs
- Attend all resident JAM sessions
- Attend all resident presentations
- Complete all assigned readings
- Complete all tracking documents and tasks as assigned
- 6 Critically Appraised Topic Presentations covering the major body regions
- Cervical/Thoracic
- Lumbar/SIJ
- Shoulder
- Elbow/Wrist/Hand
- Hip/Knee
- Ankle/Foot
- Sports/Orthopaedic Physical Therapy Skills Checklist
- Medical Screening Written Exam and Skills Check
- 3 Written Examinations
- 3 Live Patient Examinations
- Spine
- Upper Extremity
- Lower Extremity
- 3 region-specific hands-on practical exams
- 1 Final hands-on practical exam
- Acute injury skills checklist
- 2 Acute injury management practicals
- 1 Manual Skills Psychomotor Performance test
- Observation and participation in strength and conditioning
- Strength and conditioning project
- Physician/surgical observations
- Participation in DPT student clinical experiences
- Serve as a clinical mentor to new residents during your last month/their first month of residency
- Completion of requirements for either Clinical Educator Track or Clinical Research Track
Clinical Educator Track Specific Requirements (in addition to Sports PT Residency and Mentorship)
- DPT Teaching as lead instructor
- Develop and provide classroom instruction for a session of DPT curriculum
- Develop and provide laboratory experience for DPT curriculum
- Develop laboratory practical examination and proctor for DPT curriculum
- Design written examination items
- Additional Teaching experiences: (The nature and quantity of additional teaching experiences will be determined by clinical faculty)
- Create a multimedia “module” related to Sports Physical Therapy
- Initiate and complete a novel community oriented health project
- Other resident-driven proposal (to be approved by clinical faculty)
- Capstone Experience (as approved by clinical faculty)
- Minimum Requirement: submission for poster or platform presentation at a national conference after approval from clinical faculty
- Resident selects project based upon personal interests and future goals. May take many forms, not limited to: case report, case series, and literature review.
Clinical Research Track Specific Requirements (in addition to Sports PT Residency and Mentorship)
- The Clinical Research Track is highly variable based upon the project selected by the resident
- Resident must identify a Principal Investigator to serve as a mentor for the research experience.
- The requirements of the project must be approved by the clinical faculty in consultation with the research mentor
- Minimum requirements:
- Assigned learning: project specific learning which may include design, methods, instrumentation, statistics, literature review, or other relevant item
- Resident must provide a benefit to the research team/PI which may include: recruitment, scheduling, data collection, data entry, data analysis, IRB/accreditation/grant writing tasks, or other project specific items
- Submission for poster or platform presentation at a national conference after approval from clinical faculty and research mentor
- Affirmation by selected PI/mentor that requirements for the research experience have been adequately achieved
Meet our resident
Anyssa Iliopoulos
Clinical interests include treatment and management of overhead athletes
We're here for you
Still have questions about the sports physical residency program? Contact our program director, Dr. Matt Gauthier.
You can contact Matt at:
Email mgauthie@uic.edu
Phone 312.355.1465
Address 1640 W. Roosevelt Rd.
307 DHSP, MC 887
Chicago, IL 60608
Accredited Program
Initial Accreditation Granted: November 2020