CJSM in Southeast Asia

With Suthichai Yoon (L), Dr. Mokkhavesa (standing) and Dr. Lamsam (R) at ‘The Cup’

I’m enjoying a vacation with my family in Thailand and Vietnam, and I can’t help but notice that sports is as big of a deal here as it seems to be anywhere else I travel.  In the time I’ve been here Chelsea F.C. has played in a friendly with the Thai All Stars, Leicester City has made a name (infamous) for itself during their visit to Thailand, and the sports news is full of results from the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games which began June 5 and are taking place in Singapore.

A Barca fan celebrating Champions League triumph in the middle of the night, Vietnam

And all that is only the local and regional sporting news.  Like so many others here in SE Asia, I am trying to stay abreast of developments at Roland Garros and in the NBA and NHL finals.  I delighted in the news that came in this morning on American Pharoah’s achievement:  the first Triple Crown in 37 years!

My Thai is rudimentary and my Vietnamese non-existent; and so I’m happy to report that the English news in Thailand especially is extremely well developed.  The Nation newspaper, a daily English paper which is part of the Nation Multimedia Group, is part of my morning routine here in SE Asia–both in print and on line–and helps keep me abreast of the sporting news.

Where there is sports there is sports medicine.  Before coming to Vietnam, where I am writing this blog post, I enjoyed an excellent lunch at The Cup in Bangkok with Drs. Chanin Lamsam and Suprija Mokkhavesa, and Mr. Suthichai Yoon, to suss out the sport medicine and publishing landscape in Thailand.  Dr. Lamsam is Head of Orthopaedic Sports Medicine at Siviraj Hospital and is on faculty at Mahidol University.  Dr. Mokkhavesa has spent his career in military medicine, and is in the Department of Orthopaedics at Phramongkutklao Hospital in Bangkok.  And Suthichai Yoon is Co-founder of the Nation Multimedia group.

Dr. Lamsam gave me some sense of the sport medicine scene in Thailand.  He is affiliated with the Bangkok Academy of Sports and Exercise Medicine, a FIFA Center of Medical Excellence.   He trained at Pittsburgh, under Dr. Freddie Fu. He related to me that the field of sports medicine in Thailand is an orthopaedic surgical discipline; that the small but growing body of affiliated physicians has an annual conference that takes place on the Thai coast in July each year; and that, among other differences between the Thai and American sports medicine world, there is no equivalent discipline in Thailand to the ‘certified athletic trainers’ with whom I work daily in the USA.  I head to the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) meeting in St. Louis in a couple of weeks:  I’ll have to tell them that they need to export their discipline to SE Asia!

Mr. Suthichai Yoon and I shared our opinions on the direction of print vs. electronic media, and we have ‘over under’ bets on when our respective publications will become electronic only!  Which reminds me:  if you don’t have our iPad app yet or a subscription to our iTunes podcasts, by all means take the time to sign on!!!

It was a thought-provoking lunch, one which I am still digesting! However, I think I’ll be hanging up my sport coat for a week and enjoying the Vietnamese coast now.  I plan on posting from the NATA Conference June 23 – 26.  See you all on line then!