Marlee Sloan MS, LAT, ATC
Athletic Trainer

BIO

Ms. Marlee Sloan graduated in 2015 from Campbell University with a degree in Athletic Training. There, she gained experience in the field by working with the athletes at Campbell as well as those in local area high schools. She earned a Master’s Degree in Sports Management from East Carolina University in 2017, and she began her employment with Bertie County Schools in March 2018. She grew up in Turkey, NC, and decided to become an athletic trainer when she sustained a significant injury during her senior softball season, and her athletic trainer helped her to finish the season. She was without health insurance at the time, therefore her athletic trainer was her only point of care and helped her to come back from an injury that would have potentially needed a surgery that her family could not have afforded.  The care that her high school athletic trainer provided, inspired her to follow the same path in order to make a difference in the lives of young athletes.

 

Ms. Sloan joined the staff of Bertie County Schools in March 2018.

 

 

JOB DESCRIPTION FROM THE NATIONAL ATHLETIC TRAINERS' ASSOCIATION:

 

Athletic Trainers are health care professionals who render service or treatment, under the direction of or in collaboration with a physician, in accordance with their education and training and the states' statutes, rules and regulations. As a part of the health care team, services provided by ATs include injury and illness prevention, wellness promotion and education, emergent care, examination and clinical diagnosis, therapeutic intervention, and rehabilitation of injuries and medical conditions.

 

WHAT IS AN ATHLETIC TRAINER? HOW DO THEY DIFFER FROM FIRST RESPONDERS?

 

An athletic trainer is an Allied Health Professional. To practice as an athletic trainer, one must pass an examination of the National Board of Certification and hold a license to practice in the state of employment. By law, athletic trainers must pair with a medical doctor. Athletic Trainers have their own orders of practice and spectrum of things they can and cannot do, just as all other types of health professionals.

 

Athletic Trainers also may be employed in places such as orthopedic clinics, physical therapy clinics, regular doctors’ offices—as a Physician Extenders—and for high school athletics across the country.

 

Evaluations by ATs consist of: 1. Interviews, and 2. Treatments. Precise questioning and narrowing of indicators can lead to what is known as a “differential diagnosis” for an injuries, which if are severe enough, can lead to confirmation from a hospital doctor or from being referred to a physician’s care—in this case, usually Dr. Brian Bunn of Vidant Family and Sports Medicine of Edenton. He is Vidant’s Team Doctor and partnering physician.

 

When an student athlete is injured, Ms. Sloan’s job is to:

1. Evaluate
2. Treat
3. Reassess
4. Repeat

 

Being an athletic trainer is different from being a first responder in a variety of ways. As an athletic trainer, Ms. Sloan not only has rigorous certification and licensure requirements to meet, but she also has to have an extensive knowledge of anatomy and physiology, as well as the basics of signs and symptoms often associated with general medicine.

 

In contrast, First Responders must only be certified in general first aid, CPR and AED.

 

 

WHAT DO TREATMENTS LOOK LIKE?

 

Common treatments include rehab techniques, therapeutic interventions, and “overuse injuries,” for which the resulting therapy is to provide comfort and support and to prevent further damage.

 

“The administrators and staff at Bertie High work with me so that when necessary, treatments can be done throughout the day. But most of what I do occurs between 3:45 p.m. and 6 p.m., usually,” said Ms. Sloan.