Best practice for template theming - #markup vs safe_value
You actually want to use the render() function like so:

&lt;?php print render($content[FIELD_NAME]); ?&gt;


See http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/includes%21common.inc/function/render/7 for reference. Also, be sure to use hide($content[FIELD_NAME]) right before you render $content or you will render the field a second time (unless you've hidden it in the view mode on the Manage Display tab of the content type).