The innovative Exercise and Sports Medicine (Football) MSc is aimed at physiotherapists and doctors either working within football medicine or interested in moving into football medicine.

The programme is aimed at physiotherapists and doctors and is ideal for those either working within football medicine or interested in moving into football medicine.

Aspects of the learning and teaching for two specialist modules is delivered in the tranquil grounds of St George’s park with input from some of the Football Association’s sports key sports medicine staff. Anatomy teaching is delivered in the state-of-the-art prosectorium at University of Birmingham.

This is a research-led programme delivered within a School with 90% of its research classified as world leading or internationally excellent, with experts from football medicine, sports medicine and musculoskeletal medicine.

The programme is part of a collaboration framework of MSc and MRes programmes between the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences and the College of Medical and Dental Sciences.

The overall aim of the programme is to enable exploration of the theoretical basis of exercise and sports medicine in general and football in particular, and its application to the development of a physiotherapist's and doctor's clinical reasoning. Using the process of clinical reasoning as its framework, the programme will integrate the key issues central to practice in this specialist area, including: clinical assessment, communication skills, accurate diagnosis, differential diagnosis, diagnostics and prognostics, treatment interventions, management approaches, best evidence, evaluation of outcome, strategies to reduce injury time etc.

The programme will facilitate the evaluation of existing evidence through the exploration of the assessment and management of athletes. It will provide students with the opportunity to tailor their learning experience to meet their personal and professional needs, developing their their capacity for leadership within a multidisciplinary team providing clinical management in football. The programme will promote enquiry based learning through a range of strategies including case analysis and problem based learning.

The programme was written in line with the international competencies and standards established by the International Federation of Sports Physiotherapists and the Specialty Training Curriculum for Sports and Exercise Medicine from the Joint Royal Colleges of Physicians Training Board, and in collaboration with The Football Association and physiotherapists and doctors working within football and other sporting contexts.