Speciality

There are two types of "sports medicine" doctors. Non-surgical, or primary care sports medicine doctors, and orthopedic surgeons. Most primary care sports medicine doctors choose family medicine as their baseline training, which means they first complete 3 years of a family medicine residency after medical school, before embarking on their additional sports medicine training. Although family medicine is the most popular choice, other choices for initial residency training prior to doing sports medicine include pediatrics, internal medicine, emergency medicine, and rehabilitation medicine. Each of these are non-surgical specialties. Orthopedic surgeons must of course complete an orthopedic surgery residency.
Then what?
Then, to pursue the primary care sports medicine path, the doctor applies for a 1-2 year sports medicine fellowship program. During fellowship training for primary care doctors, a great deal of time is spent learning more about sports injuries. Time is spent in orthopedic surgeons' offices, as well as assisting in orthopedic surgery. Primary care doctors won't become surgeons, but it's helpful that they learn first hand about the various surgeries that some of their patients may need. Another important aspect of sports medicine fellowships involves being a team doctor for a local high school and/or college, gaining experience in the training room as well as on the field.
Also, since sports medicine is more than just orthopedics, the primary care sports medicine fellowship includes continued training in the doctor's original specialty, be it family medicine, pediatrics, etc. This way, they don't lose touch with their baseline training. Such doctors become very good at musculoskeletal/orthopedic injuries, but are also well trained in more traditional medical problems, such as asthma, hypertension, diabetes, etc. They make excellent overall doctors for active people or athletic teams.



I got this info from http://www.aoasm.org/faq.cfm#What%20specialties