Our Founder has Cared for Entertainers of All Ages and Disciplines

 Laura Mertz
​Laura Mertz is a Certified Athletic Trainer and Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist with over a decade of experience working in arts and entertainment.  She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Athletic Training from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and was a violinist in the UNL Symphony Orchestra.  Laura earned her Master’s Degree in Athletic Training from Indiana University. 

She began her career providing daily on-site injury care and prevention services to IU Ballet Theater within the renown Jacobs School of Music.  Laura served as the sole athletic trainer for 50 ballet dancers and provided backstage medical care before, during, and after all dress rehearsals and performances.  She has co-founded a Pediatric Outreach Dance Medicine Program at one of the nation’s largest children’s health care and research centers.  Here, Laura forged relationships with numerous dance studios and pre-professional training programs, coordinating the unique spectrum of dance medicine services each studio received from the program.  As a part of her outreach work with these dance studios, Laura performed on-site injury evaluations, presented educational workshops, and led in-studio strengthening and injury prevention exercise classes.

She has provided performing arts medicine and performance enhancement services to individuals and organizations throughout the country in her work as an independent contractor athletic trainer.  She provided injury treatment services on tour with a professional musical production choreographed by Tony Award Winner Andy Blankenbuehler, and she currently provides on-site performance medicine and emergency response services to the artists of Cirque du Soleil.

Laura is the founder and CEO of two organizations that serve the entertainment and physical medicine & rehabilitation communities.  She created these organizations to expand the performance medicine services available to entertainers and to increase the number of high-quality employment opportunities for athletic trainers in entertainment.  Backstage ArTs provides medical services to organizations, events, and individuals in the entertainment community while Behind the Scenes Medical Consulting advises clients looking to create, improve, and/or staff their entertainment medicine program.

In addition to her work within arts & entertainment, Laura has provided athletic training and strength & conditioning services to US military special operations personnel and elite athletes before, during, and after their Olympic and professional careers.  Her work within special operations also included shaping the on-site sports medicine services provided to a groundbreaking interdisciplinary training program.

Laura has spoken on a variety of Arts & Entertainment Medicine topics at National Athletic Trainers’ Association annual meetings, the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science annual conference, the Performing Arts Medicine Association International Symposium, and other regional and local gatherings.  She is also published in the Journal for Dance Medicine & Science.

Our Clients Span the Country and Travel the Globe
Our entertainment medicine services are utilized by professional arts organizations and entertainers, touring productions and concerts, university performing arts departments, elite training academies and facilities, performing arts high schools, performance venues, and film and television productions.

They love the benefits of our services, like:
  • improved performer/student recruitment and retention
  • fewer missed rehearsals and performances due to injury
  • improved athleticism, health, mechanics, and aesthetics of their performers
  • lowered employee healthcare costs
  • fewer worker’s compensation claims and lowered cost per claim
  • increased occupation-related quality of life for their performers and staff

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Section: ATs excel in arts & entertainment
Athletic trainers (ATs) are highly qualified, multi-skilled health care professionals who provide prevention, evaluation, treatment, rehabilitation, and emergency care of injuries and medical conditions.  ATs are uniquely positioned to thrive in the entertainment industry, utilizing their athletic medicine knowledge and experience, hands-on injury rehabilitation skills, and emergency response training to provide top-notch proactive care to historically underserved Artistic Athletes and help them perform at their best.

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