Conceptualizing sports medicine as occupational health care: Illustrationsfrom professional rodeo and wrestling

The purpose of this article is to propose a sociological model of sports me dicine that conceptualizes it as occupational health care. All occupational health care systems can be summarized according to three types: elite, man aged, and primitive. These types reflect the quality of health care provide d, the social class membership of workers, and workers' value to employers. The author presents ethnographic data to illustrate the social dynamics of primitive occupational health care delivered to rodeo cowboys and local pr ofessional wrestlers. This care is primitive because these athletes have re latively low economic value as workers, and the rugged individualism of the ir sports' subcultures supports a system of health care that is inexpensive , nonmedical in its philosophy, personalistic in the structure of its pract itioner patient relationship, and incidental in its delivery.