February 2015

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

2/28/2015- Episode 525: The Doctor is In

In town, that is! After several weeks of non-live shows, there is much to talk about so this program is chock full. Is the medical field difficult? The language sure is! Inside Sports Medicine got started because Dr. Souryal wanted to demystify medical lingo for both sports-minded and non-medical folks. Fifteen years later he’s still keeping us informed, educated, and highly entertained.

First, chief meteorologist for WFAA Pete Delkus explains the difference between sleet and freezing rain. Dr. Souryal and frequent guest spine surgeon Dr. Scott Blumenthal discuss mental toughness for both injured athletes and doctors, great and not-so-great concerts, why Dr. S. is a gracious loser on the golf course but not in the Operating Room, and Notre Dame.

In the Business of Medicine segment, as reimbursement has declined and overhead has not, some aggressive surgeons present surgery before other options that could be as effective. In Sports Medicine 101, Chicago Bulls’ guard Derrick Rose’s torn meniscus leads to a discussion of meniscus injuries.

And finally, we get to some of those calls. The first caller asks about elbow injuries, specifically in wheelchair sports, later a caller questions the change in sports culture where players don’t play as many games as past players did and yet injuries have increased, then a 61 year old marathon runner is trying to get to run his 50th marathon before deciding if he needs to get surgery for the lump on his knee.

Time to do something about court storming…

As we’ve discussed previously on the ISM blog, sports leagues are usually quite good at identifying the most dangerous plays and adjusting the rules to make them less harmful. But what if the most dangerous play occurs after the buzzer sounds?

That is what happened when the Kansas State Wildcats upset visiting in-state rival Kansas on Monday night. When the clock hit zero, students immediately poured in from the bleachers and onto their home court. A representative for the K-State University police said that the fans stormed the court so quickly that the security personnel did not have adequate time to form a protective barrier around the visiting players and coaches.

Go to 0:19 for a good look at the ruckus:

 

 

One Kansas player took an intentional elbow to the torso from an unruly fan. K-State coach Bruce Weber had to help Kansas coach Bill Self after Self was smushed against the scorer’s table.

Looking back at the footage, it seems like it was a couple of shoves and elbows away from becoming an all-out riot. It was a scary moment, but luckily there were no serious injuries sustained. The next stormed court, or the one after that, might not be so lucky.

The NCAA will be forced to reckon with this ugly incident, and it will likely recommend that conferences go the way of the SEC and impose substantial fines against teams whose fans storm the courts. While this type if situation is usually dealt with by the individual conferences, it might be smart for the NCAA to establish a conference-wide rule against storming. It may be a while before all of the major conferences adopt such a rule, but it may not be long before a young player’s career is ruined because he was hurt by an opposing fan.

With conference tournaments and March Madness fast approaching, the best short-term move for the NCAA might just be to beef up security.

SteveBechler

Tragedy on the mound, triumph on the hill

Twelve years ago this week, Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler collapsed on the field after suffering a heat stroke at the Orioles’ spring training facility in Florida. Doctors were unable to resuscitate Bechler, whose body temperature had soared up to 108 degrees.

Weeks later, the medical examiner determined that a weight loss drug containing ephedra, a Chinese herb used for weight loss and mental stimulant, played a significant role in the young pitcher’s death.

At this point, the harmful effects of ephedra were very much part of the public discourse, though efforts for a nationwide ban were stymied by Big Pharma’s lobbying efforts. There were stories like Bechler’s. An army base banned the use of ephedra-containing weight loss pills after a dozen soldiers in training died as a result of using the drug. A Long Island, NY county banned its sale after a student’s ephedra-related death. In 2001, Korey Stringer of the Minnesota Vikings died of heat stroke at training camp after using ephedra to control his weight, though the medical examiner was not as ardent that ephedra was to blame.

Although Metabolife, the nation’s biggest producer of ephedra supplements, had received over 14,000 complaints about the drug’s ill effects, a bipartisan congressional committee shut down the FDA’s efforts to make producers of ephedra supplents display ample warning about its side effects on the product’s label. In 2000, the FDA, in turn, withdrew its proposed labelling changes.

With the public spotlight on ephedrine’s role in Bechler’s “preventable death,” the FDA doubled down on its efforts to regulate ephedrine. This time, the agency proposed to ban the drug outright. The FDA found support on Capitol Hill from many who initially resisted the labelling change. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who wrote the 1999 bill questioning the FDA’s claims against ephedra, this time changed his tone, saying: “it has been obvious to even the most casual observer that problems exist.”

That casual observer Hatch referenced probably was not paying attention to the ephedra battle in 1999, but now, with the story being aired and debated on ESPN, the casual observer had a stake in it too. By the end of 2003, Ephedra was banned altogether.

The case of Steve Bechler, while tragic, has set the precedent for sports medicine as an agent for change.

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

02/14/15 – Flashback #2: Not Quite So Live, Still Kickin’

It is another special flashback show while Dr. Souryal is leading the NBA Physician’s Association meeting as part of the NBA All-Stars Weekend in New York. This hybrid episode was recorded earlier so you don’t miss your Saturday morning fix of sports, news, and medicine. It includes highlights from interviews with Heisman Trophy winner Tim Brown, legendary coach Larry Brown, and NFL Heads Up spokesperson Christine Golic as well as commentary from Dr. Souryal and Dr. Scott Blumenthal, spine surgeon.

The doctors start the show with a discussion of how cutting edge procedures used now on professional athletes may well benefit the rest of us in years to come. Sports Medicine 101 is all about healing hamstring tears. In Rapid Fire the doctors answer quick questions regarding big men and bad feet, second opinions, Ghana and Brazil, hockey and soccer, and so on. Stay tuned for a Souryal “I told you so” Story.

Dr. Souryal has some replays of relevant calls from recent live shows regarding continued pain in a frozen shoulder, hydration, circulation, and current thoughts on Gatorade versus water.

Motocross and downhill skiing co-innovate with airbags

Ideas spread very quickly in the sports medicine world. Professional sports are a vastly profitable and vastly competitive global phenomenon in which every player, every team’s livelihood depends on injury prevention and recovery.

One sport’s medical problem is just another sport’s problem in a different hue. This is evidenced by the NHL’s recent concussion debate, which has closely mirrored that of the NFL. Both leagues have learned from one another by tweaking rules and improving equipment to prevent concussions.

Two unlikely sports co-innovating to prevent similar medical problems are motocross and downhill skiing. What (other than relegation to weeknights on ESPN2) do these sports have in common? Upper body injuries.

When competitive skiers and motorcyclists fall, they fall hard. More often than not, their chests and shoulders sustain the initial impact against the ground, not their heads. Broken ribs, broken collarbone, dislocated shoulder, punctured lung. These are the injuries you can expect to endure in a  mot0cross racing or downhill skiing career.

That’s why the Italian company Dainese developed in-suit airbags for motocross racers. A small microchip uses an algorithm to determine whether or not a racer is about to wipe out. The moment it senses a sudden change in direction or velocity, it deploys the airbag around the racer’s shoulders and chest. Not much different from your average Toyota Camry.

 

FIS, the international governing body for downhill skiing, has now approved Dainese-designed airbags for its racers. As with motocross, the skiing airbags have been met with some resistance, especially in a sport where every millisecond matters. Most agree that until the airbag is mandatory for all racers, few will use it out of a fear of a disadvantage.

As sports medicine technology continues to improve, it will be interesting to see which odd-couple sports continue to co-innovate to make sports safer.

1 2
Back to top