From Education to Practice: Town Hall Summary

October 22, 2026 by Beth Sitzler

Town Hall Summary; From Education to Practice; An Athletic Training Town Hall, Oct. 15, 2026

On Oct. 15, the athletic training profession hosted a conversation titled “From Education to Practice: An Athletic Training Town Hall,” a 60-minute interactive conversation on the move from school or residency into a first professional role. The town hall discussed how new athletic trainers enter practice with strong knowledge, and what they most need is confidence – built through progressive autonomy, intentional onboarding and mentorship. Later career transitions (a new setting, a new role or a return to practice) were set aside for a future conversation.

The session was presented in partnership between:

Association for Athletic Training Education (AATE)
Board of Certification (BOC)
Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE)
NATA Executive Council for Education

The conversation followed four ground rules: keep it positive and constructive, look forward rather than behind, recognize that everyone shares responsibility for preparing athletic trainers for practice and stay focused on the first transition into practice.

Moderator and Panelists

Four panelists represented points along the pathway from education to practice.

Role	Name	Organization
Moderator	Bonnie Van Lunen, PhD, ATC, FNATA	Dean, Ellmer College of Health Sciences, Old Dominion University (Virginia)
Educator	Kelly Pagnotta, PhD, LAT, ATC	Thomas Jefferson University (Pennsylvania)
Preceptor (secondary school)	Rick Nelson, MHA, LAT, ATC	Bellevue East High School (Nebraska)
New-to-practice athletic trainer	Molly McEvoy, MS, LAT, ATC	RWJBarnabas Health Orthopedics (New Jersey)
Employer	Jeff Baggett, MS, ATC	Children's Health / Andrews Institute (Texas)

Representatives of AATE, BOC, CAATE and NATA ECE each opened with a brief overview of their organization's role in the transition to practice.

Who Attended

The audience reflected every stage of the pathway, with educators, students and employers each making up about one-fifth of attendees.

Approximate shares from the live poll and hand raises. "Other" includes early-career athletic trainers, partner organization representatives and other guests.

Agenda

More than half the hour was reserved for open dialogue with attendees.

Time	Segment	What happened
0:00–0:05	Welcome, poll and ground rules	Attendees identified their role; the moderator framed the session and how to participate
0:05–0:09	Organizational introductions	AATE, BOC, CAATE and NATA ECE each described their role in the transition to practice
0:09–0:29	Panel discussion	About five minutes each with the educator, preceptor, new-to-practice and employer panelists
0:29–0:55	Open dialogue	Attendee questions and comments by hand raise and chat, with responses from panelists and attendees
0:55–1:00	Wrap-up and resources	Key themes, resources and next steps

Themes Across All Groups

Three themes came up from every perspective in the room.

Confidence, not knowledge, is the main gap. New graduates arrive with more knowledge than earlier generations of athletic trainers. Applying it independently, and communicating it to patients, parents, coaches and other providers, is where they struggle most.
Mentorship bridges the gap. A mentor doesn’t need to be on-site or highly experienced; peers just a few years ahead are often the most helpful. What matters is timely, reliable feedback.
Preparation is a shared responsibility. Educators, preceptors, employers, credentialing and accrediting bodies, professional associations and athletic trainers themselves each own part of a successful transition.

For Students and Early-Career Athletic Trainers

Students named confidence as their top concern. Panelists said self-doubt never fully disappears and is often a sign of careful thinking.

Find a mentor early. Faculty, a former preceptor, a recent graduate or the NATA Early Professionals Committee can all fill this role. Asking questions after graduation is expected, not a sign of weakness.
Choose for fit, not prestige. Weigh lifestyle, time commitment, role expectations and support structure alongside salary. A well-known logo does not guarantee a fulfilling job, and frequent job changes show up on a resume.
Ask about support in interviews. How often will you meet with your supervisor? Are other athletic trainers on-site? Is there a formal mentorship program?
Know your scope of practice. Your state practice act comes first, followed by national standards and employer policies. Scope varies by state, and not knowing is not a defense.
Be ready for employment requirements. Background checks, drug screening and professional conduct on social media can determine whether an offer is made.
Your first setting is not permanent. Skills transfer across settings. Secondary school and smaller-program experience is valued by many employers for the problem-solving and resilience it builds. Highly specialized paths, such as Division I or professional football, often still involve post-graduate internships.
Use the resources available. Former classmates, preceptors and NATA communities can help, especially for athletic trainers building a new program from scratch.

For Educators

Educators can build transition readiness into the curriculum alongside clinical skills.

Teach professional readiness explicitly. Mock interviews, salary negotiation, licensure applications, state practice acts and a personal continuing education plan based on each student's areas for growth all help reduce the shock of graduation.
Introduce the AT Milestones early. Students who understand the milestones during their program can keep using them to guide growth after graduation.
Consider fully immersive clinical models. One program described five eight-week immersive rotations with no concurrent coursework, covering a full calendar year of sports and a range of settings. Employers report these graduates better understand the job, are stronger on administrative tasks and are less likely to be surprised by their first setting.
Keep the door open after graduation. Graduates need to hear that contacting faculty with a difficult case is welcomed.
Prepare students to use AI responsibly. Programs should teach both the appropriate uses and the risks of AI, and prepare students for patients who arrive with their own AI-informed questions.
Plan ahead for nontraditional placements. Settings such as the military can take a year to contract and six months or more to clear a student. An internal advocate at the site speeds the process.

For Preceptors

Progressive autonomy with a safety net was the most cited driver of new-professional confidence.

Gradually take the training wheels off. By their final rotation, students should be handling on-field evaluations, concussion calls to parents and conversations with coaches, with the preceptor close by.
Bring students into difficult conversations, then debrief. Let them observe conversations with administrators, coaches and parents, then discuss what went well and what they would do differently.
Make soft skills a priority. Communication with parents, coaches and other health care providers is the most common deficit preceptors and employers see in new graduates.
Ask "why." Push students to explain the reasoning behind each special test or decision rather than following a memorized routine.
Connect clinical cases to the classroom. Ask what students covered in class that day and keep their current skills list visible so cases in the athletic training facility reinforce coursework.
Preceptor quality shapes outcomes. Strong preceptors were repeatedly credited with building confidence, and preceptor training was named as a priority for the profession.

For Employers

Employers described onboarding a new graduate as a six- to 12-month process, not a first-week checklist.

Separate orientation from onboarding. Orientation covers paperwork and policies. Onboarding brings a new athletic trainer into the organization's culture and takes sustained, intentional effort.
Treat credentials as the minimum. Certification and licensure establish entry-level competence, not mastery. Plan to develop new hires.
Build a formal mentorship structure. Pairing every new hire with a mentor for the first year, often a peer a few years ahead, gives them an immediate resource.
Invest in relationship skills. Athletic training is a relationship business. Empathy, responsibility and judgment about when to have a difficult conversation matter as much as clinical skill.
Weak onboarding contributes to burnout. Employers reported hiring athletic trainers on their second or third job who were close to leaving the profession.
Partner with programs on clinical placements. An advocate inside the organization can shorten the long contracting process for nontraditional settings.
Look beyond the name of the program. Candidates' mentors, experiences and growth can be stronger indicators than where they trained.

Takeaways and Next Steps

The moderator's closing summary named six priorities for the profession:

Extended orientation and onboarding, with structured supervision and frequent touch points
Timely, continued mentorship as essential to retention and success
Preceptor training that moves students to and through autonomous practice
Setting-specific ramp-up time for insurance, emergency action plans and electronic medical record documentation
Shared ownership across every stakeholder group
Reaching out early and often

Next steps: Each partner organization will take this input back through its own planning process to inform collaborative work. A future session may be organized to address transitions later in an athletic trainer's career.