The Nicholas Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma (NISMAT)–the first hospital-based facility dedicated to the study of sports medicine in the country–was established at Lenox Hill Hospital in 1973. Since its founding as a research, teaching and clinical center, NlSMAT's approach to the treatment of athletic injuries has brought a new perspective to the relationship between exercise and fitness in all age groups. Its ongoing work provides information relevant to everyone who participates in exercise or sports, whether it is a child at play or an elderly person exercising to keep fit, a weekend athlete or a marathon runner.

NISMAT is a major contributor to the science of sports medicine. Once perceived as discipline concerned only with repairing athletes' traumatic injuries, sports medicine is now recognized as a medical science that is expanding the understanding of the body's integrated response to all forms of physical activity.

NISMAT's mission is to offer excellent sports medicine clinical services, multidisciplinary research and education to both allied health professionals and the community at large, and to provide its staff with the best resources available to accomplish the goals of the organization.

Since its founding, NISMAT has made significant contributions to the field of sports medicine, including:

• Scholarly, scientific, and multidisciplinary approaches to the treatment of athletic injuries
• The recognition of sports medicine as a multidisciplinary field
• The inclusion of sports medicine as part of orthopedic training, now mandatory for all orthopedic residency programs
• The Lenox Hill derotation brace for the unstable knee, currently one of the most widely used braces for knee instability in the world
• The Nicholas Manual Muscle Tester (MMT), a portable hand-held device for measuring muscle strength
• The profiling of sports to determine the demands each one places on the individual
• The profiling of athletes to match individual strengths and weaknesses to an appropriate sport or exercise
• The concept of linkage of body systems as the key to profiling
• One of the first fellowships in sports medicine for orthopedists
• The concept of having a physician on the side line during athletic events before, during, and after the game
• The first modern arthoscopic surgery performed in New York City
• The Tanney Fellowship in Sports Medicine and Cardiovascular Research