56% of Athletic Trainers Report Burnout, Driving Mass Exits

A 2024 survey found that 56% of athletic trainers reported experiencing burnout in the prior 12 to 18 months. In the collegiate setting, athletic trainers routinely work 50 to 60 hours per week during season, with peak weeks reaching 65 hours. These hours include early mornings for pre-practice treatments, full afternoons on the field, evenings for games, and weekends for travel. The schedule is not occasional overtime; it is the structural norm of the job. The burnout is not just about fatigue. It is about the cumulative toll of being the sole healthcare provider responsible for dozens or hundreds of athletes, often with no backup. When an AT is covering three sports simultaneously because the school will only fund one position, they cannot provide adequate care to any of them. They cut corners not out of negligence but out of impossibility. They skip documentation, rush return-to-play assessments, and miss subtle injury signs because they are stretched too thin. The athletes bear the cost of this institutional failure. The exodus that follows makes the problem self-reinforcing. NATA surveys indicate 28% of high school ATs have considered leaving the profession entirely. In collegiate settings, a survey of over 1,100 ATs identified compensation, organizational culture, burnout, and increased work responsibility as the dominant reasons for departure. When experienced ATs leave, the remaining staff absorb their caseload, accelerating their own burnout. New hires, already the most departure-prone demographic, walk into understaffed environments and burn out even faster. This persists because athletic departments and school administrations treat AT workload as infinitely elastic. There is no regulatory cap on AT-to-athlete ratios, no overtime protections enforced in practice for salaried positions, and no institutional accountability when an AT covers events alone without backup. The profession's culture of self-sacrifice, where ATs pride themselves on being the first to arrive and last to leave, makes it socially difficult for individuals to set boundaries without being seen as uncommitted.