Military Medicine — AMSSM 2017, San Diego

May 11, 2017 by

Drs. Eric Schoomaker, Matthew Gammons, and Francis O’Connor (L to R), at the Military Medicine session #AMSSM17

I have been in San Diego at the 2017 American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM) annual meeting.  There is always so much going on that I sometimes wish I could clone myself — doing so I could go to simultaneous meetings, hit every session on the program, etc.

Well, the second best thing to cloning — get on social media.

An AMSSM colleague, Dr. Devin McFadden, reached out to me on Twitter about a black hole in my #AMSSM17 social media feed.  I had not yet made any mention of Session #2 on Tuesday, “Military Medicine — Lessons Learned.”  My neglect to mention this session had reflected my failure to attend the session: I had conflicting obligations (hence, the need for a clone).

I am grateful, then, to Dr. McFadden for stepping up to give this overview of what was a very well-received session.  Thanks Devin for following @cjsmonline on Twitter, and stepping up to author this blog post!

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Major Devin McFadden, M.D.

The United States Military is the world’s largest athletic team, composed of a diverse group of individuals unified in mission to defend the Constitution. While the physical demands vary by job, each Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine must be capable of responding to fire, helping to evacuate wounded compatriots, and passing a biannual physical fitness test.

The second session of the AMSSM meeting focused on the military athlete. Colonel Missy Givens, United States Army (USA), led off with an update on Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators (SARMs), an investigational new drug with potential to aid in the development of lean body mass. Already banned by WADA, potential benefit remains for the American Warfighter, where the trophy at the end of the day is sometimes life or death. The jury is still out on the long-term safety and efficacy, and despite their regulation by the FDA, they’re still being illegally marketed as nutraceuticals, so be aware.

Colonel Anthony Beutler, United States Air Force (USAF), shared that noncombat musculoskeletal issues are the leading cause of lost productivity in the Military, accounting for 1.6 million encounters annually, and the top cause of disability for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Read more of this post

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AMSSM Annual Meeting, San Diego

May 10, 2017 by 2 Comments

Johnny Owens speaking about blood flow restriction technology at #AMSSM17

The 2017 American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (#AMSSM17) annual meeting has opened in San Diego, and we have a lot to share with you from our brief time on the ground.

One of the first sessions of the meeting was “Gaining a competitive edge: current concepts in sports performance training.”  The session included lectures on oculomotor training for sports performance and the role of sleep in sports performance, both of which advanced my knowledge tremendously.

Dr. Simon Kemp on the importance of monitoring and adjusting load to avoid athletic injury

The session also included two lectures I was eagerly anticipating: one, from Johnny Owens, on blood flow restriction technology in rehabilitation of injury.  Owens is a senior author on a new RCT on blood flow restriction technology post-arthroscopy just published in CJSM. He presented data on how this technology can be used to provide resistance training with very low loads and accelerate the rehabilitation process.  The other session I could not miss was given by Simon Kemp, the head of sports medicine for England’s rugby football union.

I most recently saw Dr. Kemp at the IOC Monaco meeting, where he gave a stellar talk on video analysis of rugby head injuries.  Here, in San Diego, he tackled a different topic: load management for injury prevention. This is a hot topic in sports medicine, a subject I’m sure you’ll see more of in the pages of CJSM and other sports medicine journals.

Dr. Jason Zaremski presenting a clinical case at the poster session, #AMSSM17

Finally, I was able to meet up with one of the newer members of the CJSM Editorial Board: The Junior Associate Editor Jason Zaremski. He is a busy man here, presenting his own work and moderating sessions, including one on preventing injury in the overhead athlete, one of his principal areas of research interest.

Follow #AMSSM17 if you aren’t already to keep up with the proceedings of this busy, jam-packed meeting.  We’ll continue to Tweet live impressions from @cjsmonline and we’ll post again — a lot more to come including the Instructional Course Lecture (ICL #21) on Friday AM, a session on publishing in sports medicine journals jointly given by BJSM, Sports Health and CJSM.

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Sports Medicine Fellowship Standards of Excellence — the Podcast

May 4, 2017 by

We’re delighted to share with you the May 2017 CJSM which just published.

At times, I am hard-pressed to match the eloquence of Chris Hughes, our editor-in-chief (EIC); and so I will quote his opening editorial from the issue: “At CJSM, we like nothing more than to bring you work from the leaders and membership of our Affiliate Societies, and I am pleased to say that this month we kick off with an important position statement from the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM) detailing their Proposed Standards of Excellence for Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship training programs. This Position Statement comes to you just ahead of the forthcoming 26th Annual AMSSM Meeting later this month in San Diego.”

The position statement is an aspirational document that all readers involved in the education of primary care sports medicine specialists should read. But…if you’re tight on time….on that stationary bike….on the plane to #AMSSM17 in San Diego…..take the time now to listen to our newest podcast, “What Makes a Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship Excellent?”

We interviewed the lead author of the document, Dr. Irfan Asif, and had a rousing conversation.  Dr. Asif has been a prolific author in CJSM and has been a guest in these blog pages before.  We’ve never been able to get him on the podcast, and we’re delighted he was able to carve out time before heading to #AMSSM17.

As ever, you can access the podcast by iTunes subscription or by going to the journal’s main webpage. You can access the article itself here.

If you’re heading to #AMSSM17 look us up when you get to San Diego. We’ll have a booth in the exhibitor’s section (#404) and EIC Dr. Hughes will be among the presenters at the Instructional Course Lecture at 0700 on Friday 12 — “Secrets to Success: Getting Published in Premier Sports Medicine Journals” (ICL 21).

See you there!

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5 Questions with Dr. Matthew Gammons, AMSSM President

May 2, 2017 by 1 Comment

Dr. Matt Gammons, outgoing AMSSM president. Photo courtesy http://www.rrmc.org

May — we’ve already arrived in May.

One-third of the way through 2017; I can’t believe it.

But it’s really here, and with this new month comes one of the premier fixtures of the annual American sports medicine calendar:  the AMSSM 26th Annual Meeting, to be held in San Diego.

The meeting each year represents, among so many other things, a time for the organization to come together and witness the changing of the guard:  the end of the term for one president, and the beginning for another.

This year AMSSM will be sending off Dr. Matt Gammons, who has served admirably since the Dallas meeting in 2016.  We caught up with him just before he was taking off from his home in the Green Mountains of Vermont to head to the sunny shores of the Pacific to ask him how his year went, suss out his Tweeting skills, and learn what it’s like to be lost in Chile.

Read on!

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1. CJSM: How did your year as AMSSM president go? What were the high points? Did you face any significant challenges this year?

Matt Gammons (MG): Overall the year was great. I really like the way we run our executive committee. I had 2 years to learn the ropes from the presidents before me (Drs. Chris Madden and Jon Divine) before taking over. Their leadership and wisdom made me feel more comfortable moving into the president position. In addition our staff is wonderful. They make the process much more streamlined, and they were my real lifeline. There is no way I could have done this job without them.

While our organization has many things to be proud of I think getting the Collaborative Research Network up and going along with hiring our research director, Stephanie Kliethermes, is fantastic.  Moving forward this will allow our organization to do some amazing work in the field of sports medicine.  Organizationally, the biggest challenge we have is our growing size. Read more of this post

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