Perceived barriers to interdisciplinary healthcare provision for world class performance athletes

This paper examines the perceived barriers to interdisciplinary healthcare provision for world class performance athletes in UK sport and moves to understand differences emerging between training, situated practice and sporting traditions. It represents on-going work which considers the changing landscape of medical professionalism in the field of sports medicine at a time when UK sport is going through a period of change. As sports medicine becomes increasingly recognized as a medical specialism, the emergence of the sports medicine professional is an inevitability. This specialism extends beyond medical practitioners to other professions such as physiotherapy and sports rehabilitation. Of particular interest to professional practice is the scope for interdisciplinarity between somewhat discrete professional fields. Where this may be especially evident is within elite sport when the various specialists come together. Utilising the work of Bourdieuan philosophy, the analysis refl ects upon the experiences of existing and potential sports medicine professionals and other stakeholders (e.g. Health Professions Council, Sport National Governing Bodies, Performance Directors, and athletes) operating at the level of elite sport in UK. It examines notions of internal and external resistance, compliance in situ, and other external factors that may impact on sports medicine practice