Most of us will agree that sports medicine is a very interesting, broad and multidisciplinary specialty. Those are certainly main reasons why many of us hold this latest issue of the SEMS Journal in their hands. The latter two adjectives, broad and multidisciplinary, lead to a plentitude of challenges. Cornelia Zeitler has outlined this situation very well in the introduction of her article about the master degree in sports medicine at the Donau University Krems in this issue: programs there are numerous on the market, sometimes to a confusing extent. Those programs vary considerably and are rarely accredited across borders, and even on a national level are not federally regulated. The result is a colourful mixture of programs with names and acronyms abbreviations like CAS, MSc, GOTS Young Academy and SSNS.
An ideal treatment of athletes, especially on a professional level, should be holistic and interdisciplinary. At times the knowledge of what other fields and specialists in sport medicine provide is scarce and thus the respective skills are not efficiently made use of, to the potential disadvantage of the athlete being under treatment. In the light of the above described confusing situation on the market, that lack of knowledge is very understandable.
This leads us to the main idea of this issue. The principal objectives are to explain and present qualifications, training and education programs in sports medicine in a clear and comprehensive fashion, whilst the many facets of sports medicine are respected and highlighted appropriately. Accordingly, in this issue you will find articles about sports nutrition, physiotherapy and medicine, the latter with medical and as well as surgical focus. Furthermore, all levels of training are taken into account. From Bachelor degree students or medical residents all the way to trained specialists, there are suitable programs for everyone. This broad spectrum is also reflected on in the selection of authors, ranging from students to recognized specialists. To round this issue up with scientific content, Prof. Kriemler contributed a highly interesting article on the diagnosis of and return to sports after Covid-19 infection in young athletes.
We sincerely hope to reach our goal of clarifying the accreditations in the field of sports medicine to contribute to a better mutual understanding and thus improve the interdisciplinary treatment of athletes. Maybe some readers even find an interesting and suitable program for themselves.
I would like to extend my gratitude to the authors and interviewees for their contributions to this latest issue of the SEMS Journal. Thanks to you we were able to fill this issue with a diversity of articles and the required expertise to meet the SEMS Journal standards. I can definitely say that I took a lot out of the numerous conversations and interviews. A special thank you goes to the editors Dr. Boris Gojanovic and PD Dr. Patrick Vavken for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this issue of the very renown SEMS Journal in my function as guest-editor.
Now, enough of the introductory words and enjoy reading the journal.
Corresponding author
Stefan Loske, Dr. med. 
Facharzt für Orthopädie und
Traumatologie des Bewegungsapparates
Spitalstrasse 21
4056 Basel
stefan.loske@usb.ch
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