Brave New World

Sports Medicine Clinic — the Contemporary Look (2020)

As many of you know, the word ‘blog’ is a modern portmanteau, a combination of the words ‘web’ and ‘log’ (a “web log” or “blog”).  It is a word with a provenance similar to ‘motel’ (“motor” and “hotel”) or ‘brunch’ (“breakfast” and “lunch”).

Long before I joined the Editorial Board of the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine (CJSM) in 2013, I produced a personal blog, begun when my children were born sixteen years ago.  It was a journal I could share on line with interested parties (i.e. family) to allow others access to photos and personal musings they might enjoy. It truly was a “log” of my experiences I shared on the “web.” A diary.

Today’s post feels to me like those earlier, rough, immediate attempts to write as a new parent.  Today’s post is a first draft really of thoughts, and emotions, new to me.  In many ways, I don’t know what I am doing: a similar state of affairs to being a new parent. And I am sharing inchoate thoughts and reactions to this new world I occupy (as do we all): the COVID-19 world. A world which, in the USA, is more or less about one month old.

In fact, that’s it! I am writing as if I were a new father to a one month old…..but, no, that analogy is not quite right…..I am writing as if I were the child himself, just born into a world whose dimensions I am trying to fathom.

Wait.  A father? A child?  Which is it?

What?!……..

I am mostly writing with the intent to ask how others may be handling this.

SARS-CoV-2 has transformed the world, with no end in sight. It has transformed sports and sports medicine, as it has all aspects of life.  The COVID world we now occupy is so different from that of February.  The emergence of this virus — and how it has divided our experience so starkly into ‘before’ and ‘after’ — truly does remind me of how I felt in the immediate aftermath of my twin children’s arrival in 2003.

And so, please forgive me if this post seems so different from other CJSM blog posts, or seems somewhat scattered.  In truth, the principal thing I seem to be doing here is to publicly be stating: WHAT. THE. H_ _ _ _.

The secondary thing I want to accomplish is to ask any of our community of readers to share your thoughts, your resources during this time of uncertainty.  As if we were a community of new parents, sharing the hacks we have learned………Or a community of the newborn groping our way in this new world.

I’ll start.

This is a more or less semi-organized list of resources I’ve found helpful just in the past few days.

1. Regarding COVID-19 epidemiology, I have found  the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center the single best resource, including World and USA maps and critical trends exploring issues including differential mortality rates across countries, or data reported by race in certain states in the USA.
2. I continue to find the World Health Organization (WHO) to be a go-to site for Q & A and “Myth Busters” information.
3. I would highly recommend a one-hour webinar produced just today by the Sports Science Institute of South Africa (and archived on their Facebook page) entitled, COVID-19 in South Africa: Implications on Health and Healthcare.  This fantastic presentation detailed the country’s organized and admirable response to this crisis; explained in lucid terms the essential scientific challenges posed by this novel virus (combination of its R0, asymptomatic carrier rate, and its virulence); and explored the potential directions the sports world will take later in 2020 and into 2021.
4. Not surprisingly, The Lancet hosts a COVID-19 Resource Centre which is an excellent repository of in-depth scientific proceedings, commentary, and editorials.  I check the Centre regularly.
5. I rather enjoyed this exploratory piece in the NY Times — how will we know when to re-open sports?

What are your thoughts about COVID-19?  How is it impacting your medical practice, your sports team?  Where do you think our world of sports medicine is going in the wake of this unprecedented and on-going challenge?  What are the favorite resources you are using to navigate these uncharted waters?

Are you having WHAT. THE. H_ _ _ _ moments??????

I am sincerely interested, and so please — log your comments to this post below, or reach out to us @cjsmonline on Twitter.

CJSM and I will be staying in touch with you.