Altmetrics

December 9, 2016 by

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Are you familiar with this logo?

As 2016 winds down, you’re all certainly aware of the power of social media. You would probably have to have been on a space ship heading to Mars to be unaware of the phenomenon of Donald Trump: TIME’s “Person of the Year”, and the president-elect of the USA, has achieved so much of his success arguably through his use of Twitter!

Imagine that.  Only a few years ago, I recall seeing people still smile at the absurdity of ‘tweeting’, of compressing ideas into a mere 140 characters.  And now we have the proverbial ‘leader of the free world’ ascendant at least in part because of his use of social media.

There is no doubt that Twitter, and other social media platforms (such as this blog, or our podcasts), have become major suppliers of information to the media consumer.  If not supplanting traditional media, social media is certainly nudging it to the side.  This is as true in the worlds of sports, sports medicine, and sports medicine research as it is elsewhere.

In the world of sports medicine research, the ‘impact factor’ has played the defining role as the measuring stick of a journal’s heft for a long time.  The metric has had its critics, but its importance has not waned.  I for one can vouch for that:  when I went ‘up’ from Assistant to Associate Professor last year, part of my application involved demonstration of publication in journals with a worthy impact factor.

At CJSM we just concluded our semi-annual associate editors meeting, bringing together a host of clinicians and researchers from around the world.  We are proud of our journal’s impact factor (2.308), but we are also self-critical and are looking for other measures of the journal’s role in the modern world.

Altmetric is one such measure.

Sound familiar?  Thinking you have heard about ‘alt-someting’ recently? Read more of this post

Filed under Anterior knee pain / patellofemoral pain syndrome, CJSM Podcasts, General Interest Tagged with , , ,

Hot child in the city

August 26, 2016 by

tami

Tamara Hew-Butler on TruTV’s “Adam Ruins Everything”

My topic for today is not that glorious piece of 70’s bubble gum pop from Nick Gilder — no, it is a topic much more directly related to sports medicine.

It’s August and it is hot indeed, with a day here in Ohio set to be one of those classic 90/90 days (>90 F and > 90% humidity).  And it’s the first day of high school Friday night football, with middle school and Pop Warner following this weekend.   These are days we need to do all we can to prevent exertional heat illness (EHI), most especially in our children and adolescents.

In our zeal to prevent EHI, we must be careful not to overhydrate.  A year ago CJSM published the Third International Consensus Statement on Exercise Associated Hyponatremia and followed this up with a blog post and a podcast where we discussed the risks of overhydration with lead author, Tamara Hew-Butler.

The hashtag that came out of those discussions — #Drink2Thirst — spread over social media last year.  The concept is an important one, and one which remains controversial.  There are still many proponents of mandatory water breaks, or of drinking to a certain color of urine.  Others argue that while both are potentially life-threatening, the risk of EHI outweighs the risks of the much rarer condition of EAH — better to err on the side of overhydration they say.  On the other side, some note that hydration is pushed on athletes as something of a panacea, touted as helping to prevent exercise associated muscle cramping (EAMC) when the science argues against that concept.

Now, Adam Ruins Everything, on TruTV, has weighed in on the issue of overhydration in sports, with hilarious effect. And I see Adam has recruited Dr. Hew-Butler herself to debunk some of the hydration mythology and spread the mantra of #Drink2Thirst

Watch the video, and laugh.  Then check out some of the links in this post that will take you to the consensus statement and podcast and you’ll get more of the hard science from Dr. Hew-Butler.  It might change your thinking, and you may start translating some of this science to how you approach the athletes you manage.

Stay cool out there and #Drink2Thirst!

Filed under General Interest, Youth Sport Tagged with , , , ,

CME from CJSM

February 26, 2016 by 2 Comments

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Holly Benjamin, MD, FACSM CJSM Associate Editor for CME

 

I have special news to share with you today.

CJSM is offering CME for the first time.  We’re 25 years old and proving that you can teach an old dog (in journal years) new tricks.

The official announcement reads:

“As the official journal of AMSSM, CJSM’s Editor in Chief Christopher Hughes, MBBS, MSc is pleased to announce CME as a new component of the journal. In addition to having free access to all CJSM publications, members will now begin to see CME modules on line that are tied to key publications. The inaugural CME module is FREE and focuses on Exercise Associated Hyponatremia (EAH). This review article appeared in the July issue. For those that have read the article or who find this topic of interest, please complete the 10 question CME module designed to enhance the learning and understanding of the topic as well as earn one Category One CME credit that will be issued after the test is graded with a passing grade. As the CJSM CME section develops, more learning opportunities will be available. The CJSM CME learning module may be accessed here.  We would like to hear your feedback on the module. Please send your feedback to the CJSM Associate Editor for CME, Holly Benjamin:  cjsmcme@gmail.com.”

Some of this blog’s readers may remember the announcement made when Dr. Benjamin was named an Associate Editor.  She has been busily working on the format and other details of this ongoing offering, with a special focus on getting the first module up and running. For this initial offering, she has picked a great topic with EAH.  The Statement of the 3rd International Exercise-Associated Hyponatremia Consensus Development Conference was one of CJSM’s most popular offerings in 2015.  Our podcast with the lead author, Tamara Hew-Butler DPM, PhD was, likewise, enormously popular.  And the hashtags #Drink2Thirst & #DrinkToThirst were trending this summer on social media, reminders that the value of hydration has limits, and that EAH is an underappreciated danger of overhydration.

CJSM & EAH were even breaking news in Vietnam (let me know if you can read this article)!

2016 is still young, but already our second issue of the year is about to be published and we have this new CME offering.  It’s promising to be a very good year.

P.S. Sept 2016 addendum:  check out ALL our CME offerings here

Filed under CME, General Interest Tagged with ,

Football. Texas style.

August 4, 2015 by 1 Comment

grand prairie texas weather

It’s big–and HOT–in Texas.

The Lone Start state, in August.  Grand Prairie, Texas–next to Arlington, within sight of Cowboy Stadium (alright, so it’s officially AT&T stadium).  Deep in the heart and soul of American Football, that’s where my month began.

In addition to being an Associate Editor of CJSM, one of the hats I wear is as a Director sitting on the Board of a non-profit youth sport safety advocacy group, MomsTeam Institute. Yesterday, I participated in the group’s outreach to a youth football organization in Texas:  the Grand Prairie Youth Football Assocation (GPYFA).  The Chief Executive of MomsTeam, Brooke deLench, has organized a week long session to address issues of football and cheerleading safety; this week is preparatory to longitudinal work including injury surveillance to determine if certain interventions can lower injury rates in the 1000+ youth athletes participating in GPYFA sports.  Brooke has coined the term “SmartTeams, PlaySafe” to emphasize the important role education, knowledge transfer, and implementation can play in the world of youth sports.

Yesterday, I was one of a few individuals speaking to the coaches and parents of GPYFA.  My charge was to talk about preventing and identifying heat illness and overuse injuries, and review the pre-participation evaluation (PPE) with the assembled crowd.

s grand prairie hs weight room

The weight room in South Grand Prairie High School It’s superior to a lot of college facilities I have seen.

The venue was South Grand Prairie High School, a magnificent structure with a beautiful, large auditorium, and just around the corner a magnificent and huge weight room and indoor turf facility. Boy, they do things big in Texas, they really do.

As I prepared for this talk, I found myself time and again dipping into the CJSM well–on the subject of youth overuse injury, I leaned heavily on the AMSSM position statement from Di Fiori et al. published in the January 2014 CJSM. When I touched on the topic of Exercise-Associated Hyponatremia, I turned to the 3rd International Consensus Statement and the podcast I just conducted with lead author, Dr. Tamara Hew. The PPE?  Of course, I would consult the joint ACSM/FIMS statement (CJSM Nov. 2014) and the podcast I conducted with its lead author, Dr. William Roberts.

It does indeed excite me to share with you all the resources this journal has.  As an educator and public health advocate, as well as a clinician, I use CJSM in a very real and practical sense.  Day in, day out.

My time in Texas was brief, but MomsTeam’s work will continue.  I am hopeful that our work will help these children and their families navigate some of the risks that are associated with the many, many benefits of youth sports such as football and cheer.  For one, I hope my talk helps prevent any cases of exertional heat illness (EHI) in this group. The forecast for  this week in Grand Prairie has the thermometer hitting 106F (41C)!!!  At least I think the humidity on an August day in Texas may be a little bit less than that seen in, say, Qatar, site of the 2022 World Cup.

As I flew home, I read the recent Sports Illustrated story on the 25 anniversary of the release of the iconic book,’ Friday Night Lights.’  I mused on the importance of youth football not just in Texas, but in the United States in general.  With 3.5 million players age 6 – 13 in this country (CJSM 2013), the sport keeps a LOT of kids active.  With the season now upon us, let’s all keep working on making this sport, and all sports, safer for our young athletes.  With the work done in this and other journals of sports medicine, we’ll continue to generate the evidence to support the decisions that will further this cause.

 

Filed under General Interest, Injury Prevention, Youth Sport Tagged with , , , , , , ,