For National Athletic Training Month in 2022 we are exploring the theme “Providing Health Care Everywhere” and we can’t think of a better way to do that than to showcase some of our own outstanding athletic trainers. We’ll spend the month sharing with you the inside scoop from athletic trainers who are working in emerging settings and unique positions. So read on and enjoy!
Cory Campopiano, MS, ATC, CSCS
Where did you go to school? University of Georgia for a Bachelor’s of Education in Athletic Training and then to the University of Utah for a Master’s of Science in Sports Medicine
Current AT Setting: International Secondary School
Employer: International School Bangkok
Years at current job: I started working at ISB in August 2018, so I’m close to finishing up my 4th school
year here.
Who are your “athletes”? My school enrolls students from early years up to grade 12. I mainly work with the
high school students and some with the middle school students when needed. Our student body is composed of students from 57 different countries, so I get to work with athletes from all different backgrounds and cultures. Sports at my school are comprised of ones you would mainly find at an American high school with the big difference being that my contact sport is rugby instead of American Football. We also have a badminton team as it’s a huge sport in this part of the world.
What’s your schedule like? My work day hours are usually from 10am to about 6pm. During the school day
before students are released from classes at 2:40pm, I usually do appointment-based evaluations, treatments, and rehabs with any students or staff that have free blocks. This is also the time where I get a lot of my documentation work out of the way. Once classes are out, I have about a 45-minute window of practice prep for taping and pre-practice treatments. Sport practices start at 3:30pm and go till 5pm. During that time, I
either work with any long-term rehab (post-surgical) athletes in my office or travel around the different practice venues to check in with the teams that are practicing. We don’t have as many one-off games as high schools back home do, so no Friday night lights as you will. Instead we participate in a lot of weekend tournaments which can keep my Saturday’s quite busy depending on which sport season we are in.
What does your facility/ATR look like? My ATR has come a long way since I first started here. I was the first ATC to be employed by ISB, so there wasn’t a dedicated ATR at the time. As I was able to grow my role here at the school, my room changed with it. Now I’ve got proper treatment tables, tape deck, and a handful of modalities to go along with my rehab equipment. We also just got a medical golf cart to help me travel around the different practice venues as well as it being an option for patient transport. I also play a major role in the strength and conditioning side of things here and was given the greenlight to reoutfit our current weight room and help design the new one that will start construction hopefully this summer.
Have you been to any exciting locations/events with this job? My school is a part of the Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asia Schools (IASAS). Five other schools are a part of the conference: Singapore American School, Taipei American School, International School Manila, International School of Kuala Lumpur, and Jakarta Intercultural School. Pre-Covid 19, at the end of each sport season, an IASAS tournament was held. Depending on which schools were hosting what sports, I got to travel with teams to the respective country. To date, I’ve been to all countries/schools in the conference except for Taipei and Jakarta. Before coming to Thailand, I was working at an international school in Beijing that offered me the opportunity to travel within China.
What do you like most about your job? It’s a toss-up between the work-life balance and the travel opportunities that come along with that. With the location of my job and the breaks offered throughout the
school year and summer, I’ve been able to do a lot of travel throughout most of southeast Asia for both work and leisure. It’s also been a great opportunity to meet so many people from different walks of life and that are from all over the world. It’s great to have these connections as whenever I travel somewhere I might already know a person there that can show me around or will be given a “local” to do list for the destination that I wouldn’t have done otherwise.
Any advice for an AT who wants to work in this setting? If anyone is interested in working in the international sector specifically at an international secondary school, one of the best groups to join/follow would be the
Asia Pacific Athletic Trainers Society (www.apats.org). This organization was founded by the handful of athletic trainers that are out in the Asia Pacific region practicing at international schools, professional sports leagues, hospitals/clinics, etc. You can usually hear about any upcoming positions through this channel and if the school already has an ATC employed, usually the posting will find its way onto the NATA career center as well.
The second piece of advice I would give is that you have to be willing to take the leap into the unknown. Thankfully the profession is growing throughout the world so professional support is out there, but you still have to handle moving to a different part of the world and adapting to the culture and such in that location. It can be
unsettling at first, but once you have your feet on the ground, it becomes a lot of fun to experience so much that you can’t back home.
