Is ACSM a professional organization?
One again, based on the membership statistics, ACSM is not a professional organization. It certainly is an organization that consists of professionals, but ACSM was not developed to represent and focus attention on any one of the disciplines/professions that serves it. Based on my reading from Berryman (1), the following quote from the Interdisciplinary Coordination and Advisory Committee of ACSM, in 1968 read, Sports medicine draws from the various professions but does not absorb them. A mutual understanding and respect among these professions, therefore, is necessary for the promotion of the ideals of sports medicine. …. The meaning of sports medicine is its responsibility to share, respect, and synthesize the interprofessional implications of these components. If ACSM is not a professional organization for exercise physiologists, then why do so many exercise physiologists view it as their organization? I cannot answer this question without making a few enemies. However, I believe
