The Mental Health Podcast and CASEMCON2019

May 18, 2019 by

I hope readers of this blog, and listeners of the podcast, have been following #CASEMCON2019 on their social media feeds this week. The Canadian Academy of Sport and Exercise Medicine (CASEM) has been conducting its annual meeting in Vancouver these past several days, and is scheduled to wrap up today, May 18.  I have learned so much from following this #, as well as following the feeds of CJSM Twitter friends including Drs. Jane Thornton  Margo Mountjoy and Laura Cruz.

The topic of mental health in sport has figured prominently in the CASEM proceedings:  for instance, Clint Malarchuk, a retired NHL player, is scheduled to talk today about the stigma of mental health in sport.

And so one of our more recent publications and our most recent podcast could not be timelier (published in our May 2019 journal): The Canadian Centre for Mental Health and Sport (CCMHS) Position Statement: Principles of Mental Health in Competitive and High-Performance Sport

Krista Van Slingerland, of CCMHS and the University of Ottawa

The CCMHS is a relatively new organization and, along with a similar group in Sweden, represents one of the first such initiatives on the planet.  The co-founder of CCMHS, Ms. Krista Van Slingerland of the University of Ottawa, is the lead author of the position statement. She graciously met me on Skype (she, in Ottawa, and I in Columbus) to conduct a podcast exploring the issue of mental health in sport and the work CCMHS is doing to bring further attention to this issue and begin treating individual athletes for the problems they are facing.

CJSM is committed to providing a platform for this important issue, one which has been relatively neglected for too long in our world of sport and exercise medicine.  In my training — and I would suspect in yours, too — the focus was primarily on musculoskeletal medicine,  Medical issues such as managing diabetes or exercise-induced asthma, screening for cardiac disease, etc. would demand our attention at times.  The issue of concussion and its sequelae have of course become central to our athletes’ lives and our practice.  But identifying and helping our athletes cope with anxiety, depression, suicidality — I received little to no training in sports medicine about this, and have heretofore relied on my training in family medicine to help.

The new position statement as well as the CJSM CME Module we have created will help clinicians, including myself, learn more about the importance of mental health in the athletes we serve, and will help us be better able to identify and address the issues uncovered.  High profile and tragic stories like that of the life and death by suicide of Olympic cyclist Kelly Catlin underscore the vital importance of improving our care.

Besides the timeliness of #CASEMCON2019 wrapping up today in Vancouver with Clint Malarchuk’s talk, there is a bit of additional serendipity to the publication date for the CCMHS statement and this podcast, as well, for May is #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth!

And so…..your action items for this weekend

  1. Follow #CASEMCON2019 on your social media feeds
  2. Listen to the podcast, which can be found on our journal web page and on our iTunes feed
  3. Read the position statement — one of the Editor’s picks for this month
  4. Check out the CME module CJSM has produced on the topic of mental health in sport

Filed under CJSM Podcasts, CME, Concussion in Sport, Elite sport, General Interest, Medical Conferences, Mental Health in Sport, Psychology in Sport, Safeguarding in Sport Tagged with , , ,

Medicine Through Movement — The CJSM Podcast with Dr. Jane Thornton

April 3, 2019 by 1 Comment

Jane Thornton, MD, PhD, of CASEM and the University of Western Ontario, Fowler Kennedy Sports Clinic. Twitter: @JaneSThornton

One of CJSM’s closest relationships is with our partner society the Canadian Academy of Sport and Exercise Medicine (CASEM).  After all, CASEM was the founding society for the ‘Canadian Journal of Sport Medicine’ (now the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine).  We keep close tabs on what CASEM is doing because it’s sure to be of importance to both us and the world of SEM.

And so we’re excited to announce that just a few days from now — April 6 — CASEM will be hosting in Ottawa a special conference.  “Medicine Through Movement:  How Physical Activity is Changing Health Care.”

April 6 is, not coincidentally, World Physical Activity Day. The World Health Organization (WHO) named April 6 World Physical Activity Day in 2002 as part of in initiative to address the world-wide pandemic of physical activity.  We in primary care SEM are the troops on the ‘front lines’ waging battle against this pandemic.  We are always looking for effective tools to stem the tide.

One of the organizers of the Ottawa conference, and an expert in the field of ‘medicine through movement,’ is Dr. Jane Thornton, a clinician and researcher who most recently published in the pages of CJSM as the lead author of the CASEM position statement on the ‘physical activity prescription.‘  Always game to see research translated into practical action in the clinic and community, Dr. Thornton was a gracious guest on these blog pages three years ago.

We’re delighted to have her as CJSM’s guest again, and on this occasion she was able to sit down with us for a podcast conversation.  No small feat in her very busy life, I can assure you!

In preparation for the conference, or in its aftermath, take a listen to our conversation. Dr. Thornton weighs in on the highlights of the event, her research into the area of physical activity interventions, and tells us all about one of her heroes.  She also shares her thoughts on ‘movement hacks’ — interventions that work for patients, and can be integrated into the busy, time-challenged clinics in which, I am sure, we all work.

If you’re not able to get to Ottawa, have a listen and by all means follow Dr. Thornton and the hashtag #MTM2019 on Twitter for the breaking information from that conference.

And before we forget, make sure to highlight May 16 – 18 2019 and April 29 – May 2 2020 on your calendars; these are the dates of the 2019 CASEM (Vancouver) and 2020 CASEM (Banff, Alberta) annual symposia. You won’t want to miss these, perhaps especially the 2020 event, when CASEM celebrates its 50th anniversary!

In the meantime, what are you waiting for?  Take a listen on iTunes or on our journal webpage to Dr. Jane Thornton on the newest CJSM podcast!

Filed under CJSM Podcasts, General Interest, Medical Conferences, Patient Education, Physical activity interventions, Public Health in Sports and Exercise Medicine Tagged with , , , ,

Five Questions with CASEM President Tatiana Jevremovic, M.D.

June 4, 2018 by

Tatiana Jevremovic, M.D. — current president of the Canadian Academy of Sport and Exercise Medicine (CASEM)

The Canadian Academey of Sport and Exercise Medicine (CASEM) hosts its annual symposium in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in just a couple of days:  from June 6 to 9 sports medicine clinicians from around Canada and the globe will be attending what looks to be another excellent conference which CASEM is hosting.

This past year Tatiana Jevremovic, M.D. has been serving as the CASEM president.  We thought it would be a good time to catch up with her before the clock runs out on her presidency at the end of this month.

In the midst of all her many, many commitments, she graciously found the time to do this interview.  We were delighted with the results, and we know you will be as well.

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1. CJSM: Where else to begin but by asking you about your year as President of the CASEM. You complete your term at the end of June, after the annual meeting which takes place in Halifax this year. What were your major challenges as president this year?  What were your high points?

TJ: There have been a few high points during my presidency year. We hired a communication advisor that has started elevating CASEM’s profile on social media through infographics and soon-to-be-completed new podcasts. We have met and introduced CASEM to the Public Health Agency of Canada as well as other organizations such as ParticipACTION, and are exploring future collaborations on projects of mutual interest such as concussion and health enhancing physical activity.. We continue to strengthen our professional relationships with friends and stakeholders such at Sport Information Resource Centre (SIRC), Canadian Medical Association (CMA), Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC), College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC), Canadian Concussion Collaborative affiliated organizations (CCC), and others.

It has been an extremely exciting year, and my biggest challenge has been accepting that this role is only for 1 year. I will miss it terribly, but am comforted in knowing that my successor, Dr. Paul Watson, will do a great job. I will also continue to promote the Academy and all of its success in my new role as past president.

2. CJSM: You currently work as an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Family Medicine at Western Ontario and at the Fowler Kennedy Sport Medicine Clinic in London, ON. Can you tell us a little about your background in sports medicine and what you do with your professional time when you are not attending to CASEM Presidential duties? Read more of this post

Filed under Exercise Medicine, General Interest, Medical Conferences Tagged with ,

The surf was up at ACSEP 2017

February 17, 2017 by

koala

Let the koalas sleep — you won’t be doing much of that if you attend an ACSEP conference

One of the highlights of my 2016 was my first visit to the Australasian College of Sport and Exercise Physicians (ACSEP) annual meeting.  I wrote about the experience in several of these CJSM blog posts.

ACSEP is one of CJSM’s affiliated societies, and we greatly value our relationship with the college.  Two of our Associate Editors are members of the college: Hamish Osborne (NZ) and Steve Reid (AUS).

On a personal note, I also greatly valued the experience of attending the meeting. The venue (Surfer’s Paradise) was stunning — just the ticket for someone muddling through a Northern Hemisphere winter.  And the proceedings themselves — well, they were little short of perfect.  From the educational sessions to the food and social events — first class, all the way.

ACSEP 2016 was, without a doubt, one of the best sports medicine conferences I have ever attended.

I couldn’t make the 2017 edition, which also took place in Surfer’s Paradise. What was my misfortune turned out to have a pleasant side-effect, as Dr. Osborne was in attendance, and he graciously penned this letter giving an overview of the proceedings:

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ACSEP has been and gone and my promised blog post is now a thank you to all those who attended clearly our biggest but also our best-ever annual scientific conference. I arrived early, actually before most registrars as it turned out, to meet and greet and enjoy the excellent presentations from our new intake of trainees. The bar is going up and up. Looking forward to increasing research contributions from this group as they come through.

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Hi hon, really busy at the ACSEP meeting

The first afternoon of the conference was up there with perhaps the best series of 4 keynotes on SEM that I have ever heard. Read more of this post

Filed under General Interest, Medical Conferences Tagged with , ,

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