Sports and Exercise Medicine (M.Sc.)

In Semester 1, students take three basic science modules:

• Anatomy. Students will enhance their knowledge of musculoskeletal and neuroanatomy through instructor lead pro-section based practical classes and personal dissection projects; and, in lectures revisit the organisation of the central and peripheral nervous systems concerned with the control of human movement and/or relevant to sports related injury and assessment.
• Exercise Physiology. Learning focuses on the key systems for sports and physical activity; energy systems, muscle, cardiovascular and respiratory systems; and whole-body hormonal and homeostatic responses to physical activity, exercise and training.
• Research Methods. Students will develop skills necessary to critically evaluate published research, formulate a research question and design a high-quality research project, from initial statistical modelling, ethics application, and power analysis, through data collection, data handling, and statistical analysis; and finally enabling writing of a scientific report worthy of submission as a journal article or critical review. The research methods module runs in parallel and supports the research dissertation component which runs over the entire academic year.

In Semester 2, the focus shifts to clinical and applied aspects of SEM with the following modules: Clinical Sports Medicine; Musculoskeletal Assessment Imaging and Rehabilitation; and Exercise Science.

In these modules, students will develop necessary entry level knowledge, core competencies and skills in musculoskeletal assessment, rehabilitation and exercise laboratory testing.  Modules cover aspects of team and individual athlete care within different sports reflective of the course participants, and physical activity and health in the generally active population or those with chronic disease. Critical thinking skills are developed in instructor lead clinical case scenario-based teaching and student led clinical case presentations and modular seminars review current literature to demonstrate the scope of problems encountered in day-to-day care of athletes and teams, and the physically active of all ages and gender.