IOC Concussion Conference Amsterdam 2022

November 1, 2022 by

The podium at CISG meeting in Amsterdam — Dr. Jacklyn Caccese of Ohio State University presenting

What is the definition of a concussion?

If you are wondering whether this is a rhetorical question, would it confuse you still more to know this is how the IOC Concussion in Sport Group (CISG) Consensus Conference in Concussion began in Amsterdam?

Would it concern you that this is still an open question for one of the more vexing problems we deal with in sports medicine? Even among the panel of world experts gathered to bring together the most recent update of consensus statement for concussion in sport?

I think the answer is — yes. Yes to the confusion, yes to the concern.

I had never been to an IOC CISG meeting. As many of the journal’s readers will know, there have heretofore been several meetings with a consensus statement as their output: 2001 Vienna was the first, 2016 Berlin was the most recent.

CISG was set for a meeting to take place in Paris in the autumn of 2020, but we all know what occurred in that year’s spring.  And so the 6th meeting was rescheduled for 2022 and for a new venue: Amsterdam.

I have just returned home from Amsterdam and wanted to collect my thoughts to give you the reader a brief rundown.

These meetings have become huge, and I am not merely referring to the number of participants (hundreds).  The worldwide press recognizes the importance of the CISG and its influence on global sports.  Over the past year the press has been following closely the story of the previous leader, and now discredited academician, Paul McCrory. And……..immediately prior to the gathering in Amsterdam, the news broke that America’s NIH formally acknowledges the causal link between concussion and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). 

That’s a lot. Read more of this post

Filed under Concussion in Sport, General Interest, Medical Conferences Tagged with , , , , ,

Gender Bias in Medicine — the CJSM podcast with Dr. Esther Choo

January 24, 2019 by 4 Comments

@choo_ek (a.k.a. Dr. Esther Choo) — a definite follow on Twitter!

We are excited to share the first CJSM podcast of 2019 with you.  Special guest Esther Choo M.D., M.P.H. joins us to discuss issues of gender bias in medicine:  “From Mansplaining to Bromotion — How We Can Move the Needle on Gender Bias in Sports Medicine.” 

For those not familiar with Dr. Choo’s work, I would direct you to a CJSM blog post from December 2018 where I shared with you some of my thoughts about one of her more recent commentaries published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ): “A Lexcion for Gender Bias in Academic Medicine.”

I would also direct you to her Twitter feed and heartily encourage you to follow her @choo_ek to continually learn from her, as I do on a nearly daily basis.  She argues strongly that issues of equality inform all our attempts to deliver high quality medicine; that issues of bias should be of interest to us all, because they affect not only our fellow professionals, but the patients we serve.

She also does this typically with a sense of humor, which has often put me in mind of Mark Twain’s quotation, “Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”  This work and this tone can be hard to achieve, because many of the issues Dr. Choo and others are tilting against can be dark.  In thinking of our own word of sports medicine, the complicated and horrific story of Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics comes to mind.  I’m also mindful of stories like that of Eva Carneiro, former team physician of an English Premiership Club, whose summary dismissal was entwined with these issues of sexism.  Or the exceedingly common phenomenon of attending a sports medicine conference only to find that all the keynote speakers are male. 

The world we serve is rife with issues of gender bias.  On his recent retirement, Andy Murray was lauded as an all too rare light in men’s sport — a man who would publicly stand up for women’s issues, a #HeForShe.  Or what to make of the arena of NCAA Division I coaching, where the sight of a man coaching a women’s team is common (think Gino Auriemma of UConn Women’s Bball), but the reverse is an exceedingly uncommon phenomenon.

There is light in this darkness.  Dr. Choo and groups like Feminem.org are doing great work.  I am also mindful of the lead that the IOC 2020 Prevention Conference has taken on this — the organizers publicly stated their intention to assemble a gender balanced planning committee, and they got it right, I think, including many luminaries in our field including Margo Mountjoy, Kate Ackerman, Caroline Finch, and Christa Janse van Rensburg, among others. Bravo!

I hope you go to our podcast page on our main website, or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to listen to our conversation with Dr. Choo and sample all of our podcasts.  Please let us know what you think. Take the time if you can on our iTunes feed to give us your opinion on the podcast in general, as we always take feedback seriously and use it to ‘tweak’ our media to make it ever better for you.

 

Filed under CJSM Podcasts, General Interest Tagged with , , , , ,

Gymnastics: A Book Review and Guest Blog Post

September 24, 2014 by 1 Comment

Jenks-Level 9beam

Dr. Emily Stuart, then…..

I have the privilege of working with several excellent pediatric sports medicine specialists at  Nationwide Children’s Hospital.  I’ve hit up a couple of them to write guest posts for this blog, including a review of the 2014 Female Athlete Triad Consensus Statement (Dr. Stacy Fischer) and a first-person account of being the medical director of a mass participation event, the Greater Ohio Bike Adventure (GOBA) (Dr. Tom Pommering).

The newest doctor to join our group is Dr. Emily Stuart.  I’ve had her in my sights to provide a blog post for the past few months.

Besides being an excellent clinician, Emily was a level 10 gymnast until she retired at age 16 due to injuries. She coached for 10 years and now judges club and NCAA gymnastics. Although Emily enjoys taking care of athletes from all sports, she has a special interest in providing medical care for gymnasts.  It’s because of her expertise both as a physician and as a gymnast that I asked her to review a book that was recently sent my way, the Handbook of Sports Medicine and Science:  Gymnastics.

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Handbook of Sports Medicine and Science: Gymnastics

A book review, by Emily Stuart, M.D.

It’s been over 2 years since the US Women’s Gymnastics Team dominated the team and individual medals at the London Olympics . And in less than 2 short years, gymnasts from all over the world will converge in Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympics.  The Olympics is definitely the biggest event in gymnastics, but there is much more to the sport than what fans see every 4 years. Gymnasts spend years, if not decades, training to become the best in their sport.

As a former gymnast, coach, and gymnastics judge I was excited to read and review the Handbook of Sports Medicine and Science: Gymnastics by Dennis J Caine, Keith Russell, and Liesbeth Lim. This book is part of a series produced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Medical Commission. Multiple specialists both with gymnastics knowledge and medical expertise contributed to the book. Thus, each chapter is very detailed and provides any gymnastics enthusiast with a wealth of knowledge.

The book starts with a thorough history and evolution of the sport. Read more of this post

Filed under Elite sport, General Interest, Women in Sport, Youth Sport Tagged with , ,