Going Out of Your Comfort Zone

How many of you have gone out of your comfort zone when it comes to this profession?  I know I definitely have.  When I started working on my own, I had never driven a gator or golf cart before, I knew nothing about field hockey, and I hated baseball.  However, my first job was at a high school. Therefore, I was working all the sports and had to learn how to drive our very old golf cart.  I learned that the golf cart was touchy, and that it didn't start driving right away.  You had to press the gas a few times for it to actually start moving.  I learned that field hockey has a lot of ridiculous rules, there's a lot of stop in play, there's only one side of the stick you  can use, and even though they wear masks, there can be concussions and broken noses (because the "masks" only protected the eyes).  Baseball was a hard sport to enjoy.  Most of my adult life I couldn't care less about the sport.  When I was younger, I was actually a huge Yankees fan.  But since I have grown up, I have hated baseball.  It's boring, it's long, and there's way too many games.  I worked my first high school baseball game when I first started as an AT at the high school I got my first job at.  It was grueling.  My student-athletes didn't want me around because I complained about it so much.  I didn't know the rules, I didn't care.  I was out of my comfort zone here because I just didn't have any interest.  (Not that field hockey or girl's lacrosse was that much more exciting, but I could bare it a little more...)  The players finally realized that they needed to make it more exciting for me, so any time something happened that I didn't know what was going on, they would teach me.  Of course I knew what a home run was and what a ball and strike were.  But when it came to if it was an error or a hit, I had no clue.  They taught me more and more and I learned a lot more.  I still thought the sport was boring, but at least I knew what was going on more than just the score.

When I got my current job with the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs, I felt as though my baseball players at the high school kind of prepared me for this.  I still couldn't stand the sport, and now working with professional athletes was out of my comfort zone, but at least I could hold my own talking about the game.  However, in the beginning of my time with the team, my comfort zone was challenged.  I was the only female in the clubhouse.   I got a lot of crap from the boys in the beginning of the season.  I was very timid and didn't know how I should take their jokes.  I understood that most of them never had a female in the clubhouse, and I don't think their jokes were intentionally hurtful or rude.  However, I did feel uncomfortable at first because of it.  Other things that were out of my comfort zone was dealing with professional players rather than high schoolers.  I realized that they had to be treated a lot differently.  I obviously didn't have to call their parents every time they got hurt.  I had to deal with workers comp which I had never had to deal with before.  All of it was so nerve wracking in the beginning.  But then you find your groove....  I figured out that even though these were professional baseball players, they still acted like high school boys sometimes, so I could still be stern with them when needed and they understood I meant business.  Even though I was the only female, they got used to me, and I got used to being around them.  The whole process of us getting used to each other took maybe about a week.  But that was the longest week of my life.  About mid season is when I could honestly say I was comfortable in my current position.

The below article is about another female in professional baseball.  Her name is Tara O'Haire and she's from Ireland.  She has been with the Oakland A's for an internship this year.  She has never seen baseball in her life.  Talk about being out of her comfort zone!  It's a pretty cool story, so take a look!  Also, have any of you been out of your comfort zone?  Let's talk about it!  I think we could learn a lot about ourselves by sharing stories like this.

http://www.sfgate.com/athletics/article/Irish-athletic-trainer-makes-most-of-A-s-7210035.php

Post-Vacation Post - Let's Talk About the Heart

Hey guys!  Sorry it's been a while.  I was on vacation in Charleston, SC with one of my best friends and I did not get to post last week!  We had a blast, if you were interested.  Charleston is definitely somewhere you should visit if you have the time!

So I have been reading multiple articles about the use of AEDs lately.  A little over a month ago, a volleyball player collapsed on the court during a game and an AED was used.  Friday, a track athlete collapsed on the track and an AED was used.  Both suffered from cardiac arrest.  A 2001 study in the Journal of Athletic Training states that cardiac arrest in athletics is rare and most athletes do not have symptoms before it happens.  It is usually non-traumatic and non-violent and causes death within one hour of the attack.  The National Federation of High School Associations estimated (2001 and before) about 10-25 cases of sudden cardiac death per year in people under 30.  From 1985-1995, the mean age of youth that had died from sudden cardiac arrest was 17; 90% of the total number of athletes were male, 44% of them black, and basketball and football athletes accounted for 68% of the total number.  Hypotrophic cardiomyopathy had been the case in 24% of those deaths and 18% accounted for coronary artery abnormalities.

In a more recent study, done in 2013, there are an average incidence of 3.6 deaths per 100,000 each year.  Males still dominate the athletes who suffer from this - five times higher than females.  Cardiomyopathy has been the main cause of sudden cardiac death in youth athletes in recent years, and there is a high incidence in black athletes than in white athletes.  Basketball and football are still the sports that have the highest incidence, as they were in the past.  However, we now know more about the heart and the other reasons sudden cardiac death happens in youth.  Some of these factors are arrythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, and congential long QT syndromes, among many others that are discussed in the study.

The many different congenital abnormalities and syndromes are exactly why a preparticipation screen is necessary in youth athletes.  More physicans dealing with youth athletes need to incorporate an EKG in this screen to rule out harmful heart conditions that are more common now than ever.  However, the American Heart Association does not support routine use of the EKG because of controversy regarding false positive tests.  And this is where the use of AEDs come in.  They are established in a Emergency Protocol because there is a lack of EKG screenings and having an AED on hand is helpful for those instances that an athlete does go into arrest and we did not know they had a heart condition.

Do you think we need more EKG screens?  Or is the ability to save a life with an AED enough?  In my opinion, I think the AHA needs to get off their butts and allow the athletes to be screened.  If we can know what heart conditions these athletes may have, we can be more aware of what they can and can't do in sports and how we can help improve their heart health.

Read the journal articles below. Tell me what you think!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC155532/
http://content.onlinejacc.org/article.aspx?articleid=1659758

Asking "Why" and Getting "How"

Athletic trainers have to ask the hard questions like "what is this injury?" and "how did it happen?"  But have you ever thought to ask "WHY did this happen?"  Well, the St. Louis Cardinals started doing just that.  Left hander Tim Cooney experienced an interesting and worrisome feeling in his arm earlier this spring.  Not only did staff ask WHAT was wrong, but WHY?  They now feel like finding out the "why" will lead to the "how" to avoid and prevent injuries.  This spring, the Performance Department was established by the Cardinals, and it consists of Dr. Robert Butler and head athletic trainer Adam Olsen.  This new department seems to give the team a competitive edge, focusing on PREhab vs REhab.  Teams have started to look into data about how to treat, prevent, and avoid injury.  Other teams, including the Washington Nationals, have revamped their medical staff.  The Cardinals felt as though the medical world and the performance world were clashing on their team.  So they brought in medical professionals with a performance background to bridge the gap.  Everyone seems to be on the same page when it comes to injuries.  The mission of this new Performance Department is to optimize organizational readiness.  This means that the department does everything in their power to get every single player ready to play at their highest level during any game.  The programs for each player are individualized with minimal program deviation throughout the club, Dominican League to MLB.  An area of concern: fatigue.  They want to understand WHY fatigue happens and how to prevent it.  There has been research and evidence based data to provide tools for players to stay healthy.  The body needs to work as a unit to be healthy which needs to be seen in treatment.


How do you feel about this "new " approach that the Cardinals are embracing?  I feel like this is not necessarily new as it is just underutilized.  I believe as an athletic trainer, you should be doing this.  However, I don't know if we are all asking "why?"  I think it is an overlooked question and definitely something we should be making a note of.  I think that this article is a great read and makes you think.  It's definitely something that we should all be incorporating into our practice.  Thoughts?


http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/cardinals-see-performance-department-as-next-evolution-in-player-health/article_1c39f91f-ce31-516d-ba75-03f1eb043cd4.html