Tennessee Athletic Trainers, let’s get it in gear! North Carolina has officially challenged us to a competition that will run through the month of March to help spread awareness of the importance of athletic trainers as health care professionals. Incentive: LOSING state sponsors a granola bar for snack at the WINNING state’s next annual meeting!
44th Annual SEATA Clinical Symposium and Member's Meeting
Don’t miss the 44th Annual SEATA Clinical Symposium March 7-9th, 2019 at the Crowne Plaza Ravinia in Atlanta, GA. Early registration ends February 20th. Click here to register today!
NATM 2019 is Right Around the Corner!
The theme for March 2019 is “AT’s are Health Care”. This theme “provides an opportunity to shed light on the many contributions athletic trainers have made, and continue to make, in areas such as research, innovation and patient care, and contributions that cross a variety of settings – from sports to the military – throughout the U.S. and abroad”(2).
NATA is hosting a social media contest and is looking for pictures of this years poster displayed in training rooms or your workspace. Be sure to tag @NATA1950 and @tnata (so we can repost!) and use the hashtags #NATM2019 and #ATsAreHealthCare.
To read more about this years NATM 2019 and national initiatives or to get your resources, read the full article below.
NATM Receives Proclamations Throughout Tennessee
Members of TATS throughout the state were instrumental in promoting the athletic training profession throughout the month of March. The local governments of several Tennessee cities and counties recognized March as National Athletic Training Month through government proclamations. Some of the areas that received proclamations included:
- City of Murfreesboro
- Knox County
- City of Knoxville
- Jefferson County
NATM was also recognized with a proclamation presented to TATS members from the Tennessee State Legislature while we were visiting Capitol Hill in early April. Below you will find several of the proclamations from the various parts of the state. If you received a proclamation from your local government representatives and are not mentioned here, please let us know at communications@tnata.org.
Here the Mayor of Murfreesboro is joined by local athletic trainers during the signing of a proclamation for National Athletic Training Month.
Front Row from L to R: Chance Ragsdale, Murfreesboro Mayor Shane McFarland, Brad Rohling Back Row from L to R: Blake Sissom, Amanda Januchowski, and Stephen Maples Not Pictured (but present): Kristi Phillips
Text of the Proclamation from Madeline Rogers, Mayor of the City of Knoxville
TATS Day On The Hill
On Tuesday April 7th, 17 TATS members, ascended onto Capitol Hill for our “day on the hill”. We were accompanied by Zach Bates, our legislative liaison, who had set several appointments with legislators in advance. While we did not have a specific want or need from lawmakers at this time we were able to continue to foster relationships previously established as well as begin some anew.
It was a good opportunity for athletic trainers to say thank you for the work that had been done with regard to the concussion bill and the protection of health and wellbeing of the athletes that we serve. We even had one legislator who agreed to sign on to support the sudden cardiac bill when we made him aware of the current legislation.
Another byproduct of our meeting was the initiation of talks, with the members of the executive board, to develop a strategic plan as to how we go about strengthening our relationships with legislators and being more of a presence on Capitol Hill.
A special shout out goes to the 10 MTSU athletic training students who showed to support our efforts; Amanda Januchowski, Brandi Caruso, Chris Miles, Colin Biegas, Dabrisha Garner, Isaiah Foster, Matt Warner, McKenzie Leonard, Pali Dingler, and Trey Link.