| Untrained coaches lead to big injuries
Each year more than 1 million suffer an injury that causes missed school, forces a trip to the hospital or requires surgery. Besides the usual sprained ankles and knees, doctors report a surge of serious injuries from overtraining, poor athletic techniques and rushed recovery from old injuries -- cases that might have been avoided if adults had taken steps to prevent them. Still, many schools and sports organizations require little training or proof that their coaches know how to keep such injuries from happening. "It's a great problem and something we have to address," said Dr. Lyle Micheli, director of sports medicine at Children's Hospital in Boston. "Quality of the adult (coaches') supervision is key." A CNHI News Service survey of coaching requirements found seven states -- Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Virginia -- have no medical training standards at all for school sports coaches.
Doctor Shortage…How Do We Fill the Prescription?
It takes a fair amount of time for growing pains to get worked out when expansion comes to professional sports. The athlete pool is diluted and sometimes importing players from other countries fills the void. Baseball has Japan and Latin America to draw from, hockey has Europe, and soccer has the whole world. These imports remind us that there is plenty of opportunity to hone athletic skill outside of the United States. The medical world is slowly realizing that the U.S. is running out of doctors and a real shortage is looming. Within a dozen years, there is the potential need for 200,000 more physicians and the training may not be available for those doctors in this country. While medical schools are increasing enrollment and 15 new schools of medicine and osteopathy have opened, those newly minted MDs may not have a place to get their graduate training.
Virginia Tech vet chosen to care for Olympic horses
A recent addition to the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech will be spending next summer in China, caring for horses in the 2008 Olympics. David Hodgson has been selected as one of about 20 official Olympic Committee veterinarians, caring for about 200 horses that will be competing in the games. After a veterinary career that took him from his native Australia to Washington State University and back, David Hodgson and his family relocated to Blacksburg this summer. He heads the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences at the vet school. Hodgson specializes in internal medicine and has a doctorate in equine sports medicine. But he and the other vets at the games will treat a variety of ailments, from leg injuries to coughs and colds commonly suffered by horses after a long trip.
Going out in blaze of gory
He still hasn't acquired social skills, so Christian missionaries asking to be taken upriver into genocidal Burma get the cold, muscular shoulder. Then Rambo accepts a crucifix from Sister Sarah Julie Benz, and away they go. The Samaritans are dropped off, then captured by homicidal Burmese troops. Some are killed, and others offered to wild boars as snacks. Rambo gets the grisly news and joins a pack of hired guns in a rescue mission - mercenaries saving missionaries. "When you're pushed, killing is as easy as breathin'," may be Rambo's longest spoken sentence, summing up the rest of the movie. Hoo, baby, this is a violent mission, laced with lacerations, decapitations and enough Rambo arrows shot through heads to make Steve Martin an unofficial technical adviser.
Sumo welcomes back apologetic enfant terrible
The undisputed enfant terrible of sumo wrestling returned from a three-month suspension today vowing to change his ways and restore the ancient sport's reputation as it confronts the biggest crisis in its 2,000-year history. Asashoryu, considered one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, was banned from two tournaments after being filmed playing in a charity football match in August, days after he pulled out of a sumo exhibition tour with a back injury. .
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