KatyPoole

What is your current title?

Senior Athletic Trainer for UK Athletics.

What are your primary responsibilities? 

My primary responsibility includes overseeing the daily health care of the UK Volleyball, Gymnastics, and Women’s Golf teams. This includes the areas of  injury prevention, evaluation and treatment, and rehabilitation. Additionally, I help supervise our graduate assistants and student athletic trainers as well as work with our team physicians to ensure all events and female sports teams located in the Joe Craft facility are properly taken care of from a medical standpoint.

Why did you choose the UK College of Health Sciences for your studies? 

I chose UK for graduate school because of the reputation of the athletic training program.  I knew I could get one of the best educations in the country while also gaining invaluable clinical experience at a large NCAA Division I institution. When presented with the opportunity to work at UK following my graduation, the positive experience that I had as a graduate assistant made the decision to stay an easy one.

Do you have any concerns about your current field? What are they? 

I think that athletic training has always struggled to receive the respect it deserves as a necessary allied health profession. There will always be a group of people who think that all we do is tape ankles and fill water bottles, but the more prevalent athletic trainers become, the more these people will realize the knowledge and commitment behind what we do. Thankfully, society is moving toward recognizing how impactful of a role athletic trainers can have in health care — not just in intercollegiate athletics, but in secondary schools and non-traditional settings such as businesses as well.

What do you hope to accomplish in your new position? 

First and foremost, I hope to be a good advocate for the student-athletes that I work with. I also hope to be a valuable asset of the support staff for the specific teams that I work for.  The ultimate goal is to develop our student-athletes as individuals and as a team, so if I am able to use my skill set to contribute to that then I feel like I have done my job. Lastly, the sports medicine and athletic training staff at UK take pride in operating like a family, so I always hope to help the other people on our staff in any way that I can.

Do you have any advice for students interested in the AT field?

My high school athletic trainer taught me early on about the work ethic it takes to work at the Division I level.  My mentor from undergrad who now works with Team USA continues to challenge me to learn something new.  My supervisor here at UK always reminds us that what we do isn’t about us. The combination of those three things is what has helped me most in this profession.