TY - JOUR T1 - What is sports and exercise medicine? JF - British Journal of Sports Medicine JO - Br J Sports Med SP - 955 LP - 957 VL - 40 IS - 12 AU - P McCrory Y1 - 2006/12/01 UR - http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/40/12/955.abstract N2 - There is no universally accepted definition of sports and exercise medicine (SEM). The nature of the discipline has changed over time and continues to do so as SEM begins to clarify its scope more clearly and delineates itself from the traditional medical specialties. This lack of a universal concept of SEM raises a number of dangers for the future development of the specialty that is starting to become apparent. By its very nature, the process of recognition of SEM as a new medical specialty means that the scope of the field has to be defined in government regulations. This formalised definition then has the potential to be hijacked by competing priorities between clinical SEM practitioners who have evolved the specialty over time and health department civil servants who are looking for ways and means to obviate the growing public health burden associated with inactivity. Although the two views share common ground, the underpinning philosophy is fundamentally different and this subtle burocratic re-focussing directly influences training and how the field of SEM evolves in the future. Current day clinicians need to be clear that this process of SEM governance serves their view of the specialty correctly. Governing councils and faculties should reflect clinical SEM rather than the view of SEM that other specialties and civil servants think should be in place. It is a very real danger that we could finish up training public health physicians with little in the way of SEM competency rather than what we need, which is SEM specialists with competency in public health medicine. Emerging and novel concepts, a new generation of trainees untrammeled by history and the overwhelming desire for SEM to take its place amongst the panoply of mainstream specialties all help drive the evolution of the specialty in new directions. The fact that … ER -