Luis Ramos Page 1

Dr. Loren Higbee

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The Importance of Medical Professionals in Sports

Introduction:

A person’s health is one of if not the most important thing that they are able to control to

a particular extent. Certain aspects of it could be out of their hands, however for the most part it

is extremely important that the population as it stands today is able to comprehend this crucial

statement. This becomes a great deal more apparent when it is being related to the health of

someone such as an athlete, seeing as their health and physical fitness for the most part are a

great deal of how they are able to have some sort of career or job in their field.  For the most

part, an athlete’s health should be the greatest and most important aspect of their life, and this is

why all forms of competitive sports have some sort of medical professional or crew on standby

in case anything was to occur. In a typical situation where the medical professionals are in need,

they are listened to and given the utmost respect as they are the most qualified people on-site to

give an opinion on the matters. However, even with the respect given to medical professionals,

there are still times when either a coach or player will not see it fit to listen and take the opinion

of the assigned professional and will make their own call on if an athlete will be returning to

competition. This has become a very problematic occurrence in sports and over the years the

battlefield has only gotten more dangerous as more evidence from research has come to light

showing that this practice could lead to worse things for an athlete down the road. An example of

which could be seen in some work by Cornelis P. van Wilgen and others who suggest that

reoccurring injuries if not treated correctly, could develop into something more and alter an

athlete’s natural pain mechanisms (111). Athletes who are injured should ultimately leave the

decision of their return up to the medical professionals as they are the most qualified person to
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give an answer and they have the athlete’s best interests in mind when attempting to avoid

greater risk.

Counterargument introduction:

The situation that is currently being provided is extremely volatile in the sense that it has

some form of valid argument for both sides. Some might begin by thinking something to the

effect of  “should the medical professional or doctor have all of this power?” or “what if the

contest that the athlete is competing in is extremely important and has a lot weighing on it,

Shouldn’t the athlete or coach be able to have the ultimate say in what goes on?” and to both of

these valid concerns there are answers. In the case of the doctor having as much power as they

do, it should be expected as they have gone through years upon years of studying some people

starting as early as intermediate school or high school and learning all the way through college

and doctoral programs and gaining experience in the real world working in various places from

hospitals to clinics to know what decisions to make and when to make them. The amount of

time, energy, and effort should not have only made them able to receive at least some sort of

power to this degree, however it should have also made them garner at least a bit of respect from

those who they are working with. As far as the next concern goes, This situation is a big gray

area as while losing the contest they are competing in might lose a lot of people not only a lot of

money but other things when looking at the business aspect of things, but the issue is it could

also lead to the athlete further injuring themselves and making a bad situation worse, to coincide

with this just because an athlete would be able to make a return, does not guarantee success that

is hoped for even if it betters the chances, there is still the chance that not only would they go on

to not succeed in the contest, but also make their current conditions worse in the process and that
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would not only double the losses that would have to be dealt with, but would put the injured

athlete in question at greater risk for various other side effects. The idea of an injury getting

worse than it initially has been explored a bit further by Cheryl A. Ross and others and they

came to an agreement that a proposed “Reinjury Anxiety” (104) could come into effect at some

point which could seriously take a toll on athletes over time. To pair along with the idea of

potentially giving an athlete this type of anxiety, Ian Shrier and others took a look at the risk of

reinjury when dealing with a return to play and revealed that there are already varying amounts

of probability between athletes on a time for them to return to play (258) showing that it already

is a big grey area, so the utmost care should be taken in these situations. The medical

professionals are hired and assigned not only as a consultant, but a decisive hand that should be

able to put down their argument wherever it is needed.

Medical Professionals Argument:

With new information coming to light some are asking now more than ever if the

situation is really as dire as some would describe it and to give an answer to this is quite simple

as there are many examples to prove the argument as true. If an athlete is injured it is of the

utmost concern to everyone that the injury is dealt with in a timely manner so the athlete is able

to jump back into action in good health as soon as possible. If an athlete is to get back to work

before it is deemed okay to do so the consequences could be worse than initially expected. Derek

W. Wood and others managed to hit this focal point very well that there is even an amount of

fear that goes along with the risk of reinjury via movement (1) showing that at some points even

just simple movements could make an injury worse. With new research being done every day

there is a lot more information than just this example that are ready to be explored. Take for
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instance records of brain activity post concussions shown in some research done by Kimberly G.

Harmon and others that has shown that if a person returned to activity too soon after having one

and showing the adverse effects that it managed to have on the person’s mental wellbeing (9).

This also coincides nicely with another study done by James D. Carson and a few more people of

high education who did a study that showed “In 43.5% of concussion cases, the patient returned

to sport too soon and in 44.7% of concussion cases” (310). Even in the cases of things that are

not a concussion, there could be an athlete turning an injury that was once traumatic (one time

occurrence) turn into something chronic that they have to deal with on a regular basis because

they came back to compete way too early such as muscle damage to a certain group in the body.

Askling and others give some evidence and make the argument very evident by mentioning that

“…it it is extremely difficult to decide at which point during rehabilitation the athlete is ready to

return to sports after a hamstring strain” (1798). There are many reasons as to why a doctor gives

an allotted time for an athlete to be removed from competition, which is why the athlete should

not be immediately returned to competition. Although of course there are some situations such as

a bruised rib or something very similar to that where it really doesn’t have all that much potential

to turn into something more than what it is, and in times like that the medical professional might

offer the athlete and coach the choice to have them go back in to play. However, for the most

part when an athlete has to be removed from the competition outright, it is typically not

something as superficial as a contusion.

Conclusion:
To say that the medical professionals and doctors of the sports world work in something

of a warzone is at this point not all that much of an understatement. Most of the pressure is put

on the doctor to “Not stop the fight of the athlete” however for the most part it is very crucial that
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they do as if they do not it could become a very hard situation to deal with for the athlete down

the line. Antoine Gerometta and others cover this topic quite nicely with a study that they did

showing that most of the athletes that ended up going back to compete after an injury had already

seemed as though they had already made great recovery (209). Overall, the job of a medical

professional when involved with sports is still very similar to that of one that is not particularly

aligned with any sort of organization at all which would be to help and not harm those who are

looking to them in times of need, and this is exactly why medical professionals in sports are so

crucial.
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Works Cited
Ross, Cheryl A, et al. “Factors Informing Fear of Reinjury After Anterior Cruciate

Ligament Reconstruction.” Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, vol. 33, no. 2, 2017, pp.

103–114., doi:10.1080/09593985.2016.1271847.

Shrier, Ian, et al. “Measuring Heterogeneity of Reinjury Risk Assessments at the Time of

Clearance to Return to Play: A Feasibility Study.” Journal of Science and Medicine in

Sport, vol. 20, no. 3, 2017, pp. 255–260., doi:10.1016/j.jsams.2016.08.007.

Wood, Derek W, et al. “Fear of Movement/(Re)Injury and Activity Avoidance in Persons

with Neurogenic Versus Vascular Claudication.” The Spine Journal, vol. 12, no. 4, 2012,

pp. 292–300., doi:10.1016/j.spinee.2012.02.015.

Gerometta, Antoine, et al. “The Shoulder Instability-Return to Sport After Injury (Sirsi):

A Valid and Reproducible Scale to Quantify Psychological Readiness to Return to Sport

After Traumatic Shoulder Instability.” Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy :

Official Journal of the Esska, vol. 26, no. 1, 2018, pp. 203–211., doi:10.1007/s00167-017-

4645-0.
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Askling, C M, et al. “A New Hamstring Test to Complement the Common Clinical

Examination Before Return to Sport After Injury.” Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology,

Arthroscopy : Official Journal of the Esska, vol. 18, no. 12, 2010, pp. 1798–803.,

doi:10.1007/s00167-010-1265-3.

Carson, James D, et al. “Premature Return to Play and Return to Learn After a Sport-Related

Concussion.” Canadian Family Physician, vol. 60, no. 6, 2014, p. 315.

Harmon, Kimberly G, et al. “American Medical Society for Sports Medicine Position Statement:

Concussion in Sport.” British Journal of Sports Medicine, vol. 47, no. 1, 2013, pp. 15–15.,

doi:10.1136/bjsports-2012-091941.

Van Wilgen, Cornelis P, and Doeke Keizer. “Neuropathic Pain Mechanisms in Patients with

Chronic Sports Injuries: A Diagnostic Model Useful in Sports Medicine?” Pain Medicine, vol.

12, no. 1, 2011, pp. 110–117., doi:10.1111/j.1526-4637.2010.01023.x.

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Reflection Essay

         Writing this essay began as something of a continuation of the last one, that much though

seemed as though it would have had to happen as the topic or subject that I was writing about

had carried over to be the focus of this piece as well. There were a few problems that I had

encountered during the last writing process for essay 2 that I had ended up encountering to some

lesser degree while working on this one. These issues that I came across were more so

comparable to something of a pothole in the road this time on the journey that was completing

this essay instead of a complete roadblock that caused me to change my route as they would have

for my last essay. All they required was a little bit of a work around for the most part and not

complete restructuring.

         One of these issues that I was able to learn from and deal within the last essay was

staying within the word count, now of course with this essay the maximum word count was

around 500 words more than it was last time, however I also had to cite/use more sources.

Luckily this time around I had prior experiences and I knew how exactly to deal with staying in

the word count, so it came to me significantly easier to just paraphrase and summarize some of

my sources rather than quoting them all word for word and eat up at my word count. Not only

with paraphrasing and summarizing did I manage to keep the word count down, but in the last

essay I was doing in text citations completely wrong and from assignments in class that we did, I

was able to learn the correct way of how to do in text citations which saved me a lot of space this

time around.

         As far as comments from peer-review go, I had multiple outlets to reach for and ask for

opinions whether it was in class or out of class or in the writing workshop I had gotten multiple
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comments on my essay that I had taken into consideration with the final drafting process. One

big comment that I had taken and applied to my essay this time around after showing my near

final draft was “you should paraphrase this rather than quote directly from the author in this

case” However, even though this was the comment that had the most influence on how this final

draft turned out, it was already explained in the previous paragraph. As far as comments that I

didn’t take as much into consideration, ones that I didn't really feel as though they applied to my

writing all that much such as “you should add a paragraph explaining what goes on more” and

while maybe if the audience were different for this essay (maybe I will add something like this in

the final revision for the portfolio) but as of right now the target audience for this essay was to

people who would already be a part of the conversation and they really wouldn't need much

explanation or background information on some of the topics that I cover.

         Writing an argumentative essay for the first time in English 1302 was certainly an

experience that I wasn’t expecting to do, however it was a welcome one as it has helped me

develop some skills that I will be able to use in other classes. Some of these skills include

actually creating and fleshing out an argument with proof and evidence before I decide to take it

to an audience and back it up. This can be used in other classes such as my political science class

as I need to take in information that I am either provided with or find and be able to not only

interpret it but be able to explain it, which is pretty much more or less what we have been doing

for this essay, and while the skills cannot necessarily be utilized in my math class, they might

help me when asking my friend to help me with homework.

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         The two essays that I have written prior in this semester have both managed to teach me

some sort of lesson, all of which I will be able to apply to my final revisions in hopes of creating

something that not only meets expectations in every aspect but exceeds them as well. This third

essay of course is no exception as it not only taught me how to properly do in text citations

(Hopefully) but it also taught me how to flesh out an argument to use to my advantage, and while

this essay was pretty enjoyable overall to make I wouldn’t like to see it for a while as I have

grown slightly sick of the topic, so as of now it is time for me to start the revision process for

essay 1.