Sports and exercise medicine: An emerging medical speciality

Abstract

Sports and exercise medicine (SEM) is a relatively new medical speciality that comprises sports medicine (overall medical care of active and exercising individuals for performance optimisation and improvement) and exercise medicine (use of physical activity and exercise for health and fitness promotion and illness and injury management). Physicians with specialisation in SEM and clinical and interventional physiology (CIP) have key roles to play in combating physical inactivity and non-communicable diseases which are threatening to become epidemic proportions on the one hand, and dismal sports performance and rising doping menace on the other hand. This review provides information regarding SEM as an emerging medical speciality, its domains, key roles of the SEM and CIP physicians and future prospects of this field. CIP along with exercise physiology, as the foundation of SEM, is discussed in this review.