2019 E-Board Election | Jaclyn Penson | Christine Reyes
Jaclyn Penson’s resume in PDF format
President-Elect Candidate
NHATA Membership,
It is with great jubilee that I write in response to my nomination for the President-Elect position with the New Hampshire Athletic Training Association. I have extensive experience in, and passion for, the profession of sports medicine. It is my goal to utilize my knowledge in Evidence Based Medicine, all domains of athletic training, and my extensive experience, along with my warm and compassionate nature, to assist and be a strong team member of the NHATA. As President-Elect I believe I will help the NHATA work at positively forwarding our profession while continually developing and holding a primary focus on health and safety of our patient-athletes, and fellow athletic training coworkers out in their setting of choice.
Currently, I am the Head Athletic Trainer at Division I Brattleboro Union High School. As the sole Athletic Trainer at the high school I utilize a wide range of clinical skills in order to successfully care for all 28-different varsity and sub varsity sport teams throughout the year. I also coordinate closely with other health care providers in and around the community collaborating the athletes care. I am responsible for all management responsibilities of the athletic training clinic and ensuring the progression of my practice. I also have had the wonderful opportunity to give back to my alma mater by being a preceptor and hosting Keene State Athletic Training interns each semester. It is a joy and privilege to assist in the growth of the athletic training profession by hands on teaching young professionals just starting out in their careers.
It is my philosophy and professional goal to have every active individual requiring care to become educated, bigger, better, faster, and stronger from the time they step foot into the athletic training clinic until they are released from my care. To accomplish this goal my practice utilizes Evidence Based Medicine focusing on prevention, manual therapies, multi-planer rehabilitation and functional exercises, as well as strong compassionate bedside manner. I am always humbled watching patients that I work with succeed. It is a true gift to work with the human body and mind in health care.
Recently, I have been privileged to further my education by completing my Master of Science in Athletic Training at Indiana Wesleyan University. In this program I was afforded the opportunity to vastly expand my scope of practice in all domains of athletic training, including leadership and management skills. I have been able to directly apply new knowledge and skill gained to my current position.
As President-Elect I will utilize all current and past experiences, and creative resources to assist the NHATA in continually supporting our sector under the umbrella of the National Athletic Training Association. With this position I will bring about positive change which will even spread across state lines, because in the end, we are all one. It is my personal experience, in addition to many that I network with, that practicing as an athletic trainer in traditional settings, even under an ordering physician, can leave the ATC solely advocating and fighting to defend their medical decisions in the work place, and even struggling to defend the NATA code of ethics to their employers. Leaving ATC’s alone and defenseless is detrimental to our profession. It weakens our morale in uplifting who we are, not only to our patients and employers, but also other medical professionals in different fields of work. It is my goal to implement solutions in which further protect the ATC who works alone under non-health care professionals. It is my mission to create a safety net of support to these ATC’s in need and provide reporting protection. In addition, it will be imperative in achieving this goal, to also move our profession forward by specifically educating- possibly through creating continuing education units- not to AT’s, but other health care professionals in which we work with so closely, like primary care doctors, EMT’s, Physician Assistants, and nurses, on the true and extensive scope of practice an AT holds. This would allow the AT the opportunity to continually assist in situations, and patient cases, without the need to defend what their scope of practice is and how they can help. This will allow the freedom for the AT to just do what matters most; being an irreplaceable part of a health care team providing exceptional care to a person in need. It is important to always educate, because education is what brings awareness, and is what will bring continual open-mindedness, which in healthcare now, is imperative.
As President-Elect, I will also want to help bring change in the continual protection in health and safety of specifically high school and college athletes. It has been my experience, and in reviewing current policies in certain states, there is little room to protect athletes. For example, currently it is not illegal for a high school aged student, under 18, to inhale smelling salts to enhance performance for 60-90 seconds. The health effects from this could be detrimental, and dangerous, especially if a student has a recent head injury, or a respiratory issue with a medication that could adversely cause a reaction with the inhalant. I would want to again, educate schools, principal associations, and parents on health and safety on over the counter drugs, and move to make medications, like smelling salts illegal by the principal associations. Lastly, I will also want to bring about change to further protect an athlete from a coach in creating a reporting policy that ensures their anonymity and helps them to continually enjoy their sport safely with no retribution for speaking their truth. This again could be done by the use of a safety net of support by our state association.
I am confident that my robust experience as an Athletic Trainer, and my education has perfectly prepared me to hold the position as President-Elect for the NHATA. It would be a great honor, and gift to join the Athletic Training team and allow my leadership skills to help positively impact the state of New Hampshire, the AT’s with in the state, patient-athletes, and beyond. I look forward to speaking with you further about this opportunity.
Sincerely,
Jaclyn Penson
