An unusual offering: a P.E. class that won't meet your P.E. requirement—but will earn you academic credit!
PE 205: Sports Medicine
This Physical Education, Recreation, and Athletics (PERA) Department course taught by PERA Associate Professor of the Practice Connie Bauman combines the study of biomechanics and anatomic kinesiology. It focuses on the effects of mechanical forces from within and outside the body and their relationship to injuries of the musculoskeletal system. Many of the students enrolled in the class have a health profession interest.
In addition to lectures, laboratory sessions provide a clinical setting for hands-on learning and introduce students to the practical skills involved in evaluating injuries, determining methods of treatment, and establishing protocol for rehabilitation. An off-site cadaver lab at Harvard Medical School reinforces identification of anatomical structures.
Bauman says, "Many of my pre-med advisees who have taken the course tell me that it prepared them for medical school—familiarity with the musculoskeletal system and the cadaver prosection lab gave them a 'leg up' in their cadaver experience in medical school." And she frequently receives messages from students and graduates who have found their practical knowledge imminently useful (see sidebar.)
An outgrowth of the class is the SLAM DUNK Outreach and Mentoring Project with middle-school girls enrolled in the Science Club for Girls. Through their work in that program, students have gone on to present at Tanner and Ruhlman conferences, pursue individual or group independent study courses in biological sciences, and even co-author articles submitted to science journals.
Sports medicine travels with me everywhere I go, thanks to Professor Bauman!
—Jennie Dana Krasker '11