Home Sweet Home

Back home and all is quiet - as is St. John's according to those still there. Mind still spinning from so many lectures, workshops and discussions. However, excitement has built for things to come in the future and there are so many great ideas about to come to fruition shortly in the CASEM world. Hopefully we can build off our conference momentum and come through on all our new ideas.

Please don't forget to complete the survey to evaluate the conference if you attended at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7K7VFNR. It will help us make the next one even better. Looking forward to seeing you all again in Kelowna June 20-23, 2012!

Return to play?!

Late morning at the CASEM conference in St. John's in the middle of a thought provoking session on Return to Play - one of the most difficult tasks of a sports medicine physician. We all struggle with instructing athletes on return to play post concussion or post injury. As we have learned and experienced, there are many factors that affect our decision making capabilities and we want to decrease the re- injury rate or risk of long term sequelae. These are debates we go through daily. However, one scenario was presented today that I have not come across myself and that made me realize RTP decisions are complex. There are many non- traditional scenarios which many of us are coming across and may not be discussing with each other or in literature.

So I put the question out to all of you - how would you deal with a female athlete runner with a BMI of 18. Do you have any concerns with her participating in competition?

Any interest in a female athlete triad Timely Topics or is everyone else more comfortable with this?

Rally in the Alley

Ater an inspiring and informative day at the CASEM conference, the group headed out into the rainy streets of St. John's led by our bag-piping conference organizer for some food, drinks, song and dance. Amid chants of Prest-on...Prest-on, we rekindled old friendships and forged new partnerships. The people of St. John's have been extremely gracious in welcoming this rowdy crew into their city, their restaurants and their pubs.

Amazingly, Friday morning sessions were well attended and full of informative lectures and workshops as always. More learning to come tomorrow...

CASEM on the Eastern Edge

CASEM members from across the country are gathered in St. John's, Newfoundland this weekend to learn from each other, discuss ethical issues in sport medicine and have meetings to continue our mission of health promotion and disease prevention. And of course...to have fun!

It never ceases to amaze me the talent and accomplishments we have in this group of people which is humbling to those of us just starting out. This was especially evident when Dr. Taunton discussed the capabilities of the Vancouver Olympics host medical facilities. The work that team did to care for athletes and all those involved in the games mostly within their compound was amazing! I think I can speak for all of us when I say that it makes me feel proud to be a Canadian and a sports medicine physician. Hopefully, we can all live up to those expectations in all international games to come.