USA Health family medicine physician Dr. Peter Rippey recently represented the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM) as one of three U.S. designees during a prestigious two-week travel fellowship in Canada.

Rippey, an assistant professor of family medicine at the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine, also has a sports medicine qualification.

During the international fellowship, Rippey was among two fellows and one mentor from the U.S. who traveled to Canada to meet with other sports medicine specialists and observed how the provision of care can differ, including reimbursement models, clinical practices, treatment models and the challenges of providing care for athletes.

“We shadow sports medicine specialists in clinic and hospital settings, tour and shadow rehab specialists and have conversations about how provision of care is the same or differs and share ideas,” Rippey said. “We also gave lectures at various sites and acted as ambassadors of sorts to foster international relationships in the sports medicine community.”

Sports medicine physician members of the AMSSM are eligible to apply for this competitive opportunity if they have completed their fellowship within the previous 12 years. Considered prestigious in sports medicine, the international traveling fellowship offers the chance to learn from global sports medicine experts and further their knowledge through clinical immersion at renowned facilities.

Dr. Peter Rippey, right, of USA Health in Mobile, Alabama, drives the Edmonton Elks Car during a two-week fellowship in Canada. Rippey was one of three U.S. physicians chosen for the prestigious fellowship by the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine. (contributed)

Rippey described being selected as an honor and personally exciting because the mentor in his group, Dr. Stan Herring, is a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician who is considered one of the fathers of sports medicine and is an expert in concussions and head injury. Herring is a clinical professor in the departments of rehabilitation medicine, orthopaedics and sports medicine, and neurological surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Herring also has served as team physician for the National Football League’s San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks, and Major League Baseball’s Seattle Mariners.

“We had amazing conversations traveling around Canada for two weeks,” Rippey said. “We also met the chief medical officer for the Canadian Olympic team; chief medical officer for the Canadian Football League; and Kathryn Schneider, Ph.D., PT, a researcher who was instrumental in drafting the latest concussion position statement.”

Rippey spent time in western Canada in Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton, as well as a weekend in Banff National Park. “I would like to thank my fellow sports physicians and colleagues in the departments of family medicine and orthopaedics for allowing me to serve,” Rippey said, “and covering for me to take two weeks off in the middle of football season and from clinic duties.”

Founded in 1991, the AMSSM provides a forum to foster professional relationships among sports medicine physicians to advance the discipline of sports medicine through education, research, advocacy and excellence in patient care.

The AMSSM Traveling Fellowship program encourages academic interchange, shared research and exploration of common clinical interests with other sports medicine leaders worldwide. The experience includes the opportunity to view live patient encounters, tour sports medicine facilities, share cases and spend time with regional experts in sports medicine.