Five questions with Dr. Carlin Senter, Program Chair for #AMSSM2021

CJSM is the official journal of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM), and so we are especially eager for the upcoming AMSSM Annual Meeting to be taking place virtually (meaning: you can ‘touch bases’ anywhere on the planet) 13 – 18 April, 2021.

Carlin Senter, M.D. is the Director of Primary Care Sports Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and the Program Chair for #AMSSM2021. We can only imagine how busy she is right now, with only a few weeks left before the big event.

Somehow, she found the time to let us interview her. Thank you, Dr. Senter, and ‘see’ you in a few weeks at the meeting.

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1. CJSM: Dr. Senter, you are the Program Chair for the upcoming AMSSM 2021 meeting, to be held virtually, and we know you have been very, very busy with the preparations.  What have been some of your significant challenges getting the program up and running in the middle of a pandemic?  Have there been any unforeseen opportunities that a virtual meeting has offered you and the society?

Carlin Senter, M.D. (CS): Actually chairing the Program Planning Committee was a great project for me to dig into during all of the uncertainty and challenges of 2020. I really enjoy planning CME meetings and have experience doing so, so this was a fun project for me. I love the creativity involved in planning these meetings and the way you get to shape a meeting around important themes and hot topics. Planning a meeting also forces me to keep up on all the latest literature.  The AMSSM staff is incredibly skilled and experienced planning the meeting, so their guidance has been invaluable. I also have an awesome Program Planning Committee and great mentors from AMSSM who have helped me throughout the planning process, so really it’s been an honor and very enjoyable to work on this throughout 2020-2021.

When we decided to go virtual with the meeting, we were of course disappointed not to get to be in person to see each other, and to meet and honor our national and international guest speakers in person. However the virtual format does have benefits. From an educational standpoint, attendees will have a chance to view 100% of the meeting in the comfort of their homes. If you want to attend 100% of the morning ICLs you can do so! If you want to watch both the session on Knees and Running as well as the session on Hips and Spine you can do so! If you want to attend in your PJs or on your spin bike you can do so! Those watching live will have a chance to ask questions of our speakers using the meeting app, just as if we were in person. For our society, I think a virtual meeting allows more people from around the country and around the world to attend at lower cost, saving on hotel and travel. I’m really hoping that we have a great turnout!

2. CJSM: As the official journal of AMSSM, CJSM has already published (in our March 2021 issue) the research abstracts and case podium abstracts for the meeting.  We’re looking forward to seeing those podium presentations, and we’re looking forward to many of the speakers you have invited.  What are some of the big highlights you have in store for attendees?

CS: So many highlights, where to start? We built the meeting around the themes of exercise medicine and health equity in sports medicine. We have a tremendous line up of speakers, from experts within our organization to invited guests from around the country and around the world. We will hear from international experts in exercise medicine, physical activity promotion, behavioral change, health equity, prevention of sexual violence in sport and Title IX.

I’m really excited to hear talks about injury prevention in throwing athletes, shared decision making and orthobiologics, exercise vs modalities as treatment for tendinosis, the very latest on rehab for femoroacetabular impingement and all the latest on sports nutrition.

There will be awesome talks about injury prevention in runners, exercise to treat concussion, management of tricky stress fractures and identifying osteoarthritis mimickers. For the team doctors out there, we’ll learn the keys about COVID and cardiology, how to counsel our patients about e-Cigarette use, care of the transgender athlete, managing type-1 diabetes in athletes and how the menstrual cycle affects athletic performance.  We will hear from AMSSM members that have been leaders in the creation and execution of sport policy during COVID-19 and we’ll think about how advocacy can promote access to sports medicine care.

There will be time for reflection at the close of the meeting on Sunday as we listen to AMSSM members’ take-homes from their own areas of expertise through COVID-19. There are over 20 morning instructional course lectures that offer attendees a chance to meet with speakers in a small group setting to dive deeper into a particular topic. These sessions offer a really amazing opportunity for members to meet each other and to ask questions of, in many cases, an internationally known expert in the field.

Lastly, if I’m totally honest,  one of my favorite times at the AMSSM meetings are the morning exercise sessions, and this year we are fortunate to have 3 morning sessions as well as activity breaks between talks to keep us moving and energized. I’ll see you there!

3. CJSM: You’re on Twitter – would you compose a tweet for #AMSSM2021 that we can share?

CS: Sports medicine fans! Virtual #AMSSM2021 is April 13-28, 2021. Join us for the latest and most essential sports medicine knowledge, head to toe, from national and international experts. This is your one-stop sports medicine update! (@carlin_senter)

4. CJSM: We don’t want to lose sight that you have a day job (though possibly most of your work hours now are consumed with this meeting!!!).  Can you tell the readers a little bit about your practice at UCSF and your particular research interests?

CS: I’m the Director of Primary Care Sports Medicine here at UCSF, where I practice primary care internal medicine and sports medicine. My goal in both practices is to help every patient be an athlete. I’m a team physician for San Francisco Unified School District’s Washington High school and University of San Francisco. I am co-founder and co-director of the UCSF Sports Concussion Program.

As a clinician-educator, my research goal is to figure out the best ways to teach musculoskeletal medicine to medical students, residents and practicing clinicians. I run the UCSF Resident Injection Clinic (RIC), a clinic embedded in our primary care medicine clinic where residents evaluate patients with knee and shoulder pain and perform steroid injections when indicated. We are studying the outcomes of the RIC to try to figure out how many injections a learner needs in order to competently perform a knee or shoulder injection. I co-chair two annual UCSF CME courses and speak in a number of additional courses each year mostly on topics where medicine meets sports medicine.

I feel really fortunate to have the job I have – I find the interplay between the work I do in primary care and sports medicine really interesting and I love that teaching allows me to be creative and prompts me to keep up on the latest literature.

5. CJSM: Finally — you are a program chair and not a prognosticator, but we have to ask: what are the odds that AMSSM 2022 will take place in person in Austin TX next April? Can we ‘keep Austin weird’ in 2022?

CS: I think odds are great that we’ll be meeting together in person in Austin in April 2022. Kyle Goerl, M.D. is the 2022 Program Planning Chair and has selected a fantastic committee that is already at work on putting together an amazing meeting! I will see you there.