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Are our top sports medical staff competent?

Roar Guru
25th November, 2012
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Roar Guru
25th November, 2012
45

The Wallabies and the Australian Super Rugby franchises have suffered a horrendous injury toll over the past two or three seasons.

In a western country with state of the art medical facilities, many are at a loss to find the reason behind such an enormous injury list.

Unwittingly, Wallaby front-rower James Slipper may have uncovered the awful truth. The medical staff are either not interested in doing their job or are incapable of simple procedures.

In the Sydney Morning Herald Slipper is quoted as saying that when he made his debut he lied about his weight. He told the medical staff he weighed 113 kg, but reality he was only 107 kg.

Why would the medical staff just accept his word? Surely they did a medical assessment, so why didn’t the doctor or physio utter the phrase we have all heard: “Just step on the scales”?

What else are the players lying about? What else are the medico’s missing?

“Nah Doc, I’m 110% fit, no piddling, niggling hamstring injury here!” says the player.

“Ahh great! No need to actually look at you then,” smiles the doctor.

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“Can you just pass me my crutches, Doc?” asks the player.

“No worries. Sure is a strange fad, using crutches when you clearly don’t need them,” The doctor replies.

All these calls for Robbie Deans’ scalp are clearly wrong, what we need is a thorough, two or three year inquiry by the ARU into the operation of the medical teams. That’ll fix everything…

In all seriousness, Slipper’s admission does highlight the question of competency.

If the medical staff didn’t bother to weigh Slipper what else are they missing in their assessments? If simple assessment steps are being overlooked or bypassed, it casts doubt onto all of their assessment and management procedures.

Oh, a final thought occurs; could the same malaise be infecting Cricket Australia’s medical staff as well?

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