WACO, Texas (KXXV) — Baylor Scott & White brings together physicians, athletic trainers and sports medicine professionals for its annual sports medicine workshop.
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This hands on training is to prepare for injuries and emergencies they may face throughout the season.
"Stuff like this helps us keep us in the know with the ever-changing world of sports medicine," athletic trainer for West ISD, Chase Remini said.
"If you've been out of college for five years, what you've already learned, you know five years ago was already obsolete. I've been out of college for quite a while now, so it's good to have a local resource," Remini said.
"Stuff changes every single year. Every day, hundreds of papers get published — being able to sift through that to figure out what the important information is," physician Dr. Caroline Fryar said.
Medical professionals who have worked in professional sports also talked about their experiences on the field, and there are certain topics the workshop focused on.
"The biggest one right now is heat, obviously concussions, things like that, spine board procedures, you know, the things that we do to make sure our emergency action plans are in place and proper," Remini said.
With the topic of concussions, Guardian Caps took center stage. I've covered how Guardian Caps are changing our high school athletes and physicians talk about the unsettled results.
"The data is kind of inconclusive so far. That being said, we also don't have any data that says they're bad and that they increase concussions or that they have negative effects. That's kind of that personal decision of does this make sense for me and my own individual situation," Dr. Fryar said.
At the end of the day, the training is about the health and safety of athletes — and they make sure to relay this information to the players.
"We actually just sit down with them and say, hey, these are the signs of concussion. These are the signs of heat illness versus heat emergency or heat exhaustion versus heat stroke. We actually go through and sit down with all the kids and go through that with them," Remini said.
Fall practices for high school football begin on Monday.
