Pros
There are a good amount of opportunities to do some pretty neat things. To say I had some unique experiences as an athletic trainer would be an understatement. While I was there, the continuing education benefit was helpful, although they were starting to scale it back when I left. There is also some great team members within this large company that you can learn a lot from. Really helps to have that to grow as a clinician and a person.
Cons
All operations within the athletic training department is completely hypocritical. Their corporate way of saying they don’t care about your work life balance is by saying that your work supports your life, so work more. They say they care about you as a person, yet I have heard plenty of management members within the athletic training department openly making fun of their staff. They say they don’t have quotas for PT referrals, but they always tell team members that they aren’t getting enough PT referrals to the clinics. They say they care about patient care, but that is one thing that they do not evaluate at all. They only evaluate business metrics. At the end of the day, what is told to you by management team members needs to be taken at face value. A lot of their talking points come from when they were a much smaller company, and they actually stood behind their word. Nowadays, they hide behind corporate catch phrases, over promise and under deliver. My advice to any young athletic trainer is to be eyes wide open with this company. Be aware that they will use and abuse you for your services. Feel free to use and abuse them right back. Get your experience, enhance your skill set, then move on. This is what seems to be a trend lately, as their retention rate is dropping year over year.
