Description

Jonathan chats us through head injuries, focusing on concussion, what to look for, how to assess, how to treat.

Top 3 tips:

1. “If in doubt sit them out”- if you suspect concussion treat it as such, remove the player and don’t let anyone return to play on the same day.
2. Look for concussion education resources. Either the Sport-Scotland concussion document or NES PBSGL modules require good places to start. 
3. Learn to take a concussion history - most concussions do well but recent past history is really important and may need more conservative advice.

Biography:

As a teenager I was a pool lifeguard and played every sport going so I have always combined sports and emergency medicine. 

Sport and Exercise medicine became a speciality in 2007 and I am one of a handful of Consultants in Scotland where I work both in the NHS and for SportScotland with high performance athletes preparing for major games.  I am based in the Emergency department in the Victoria hospital in Kirkcaldy having worked in remote and rural emergency medicine for 12 years on Skye.  

I have had an apprenticeship in rugby medicine over 15 years from Dr James Robson and currently look after Glasgow Warriors. I wrote and ran sports prehospital care courses for Scottish Rugby, Premier League football and World Rugby. I’m lucky enough to have worked with Team GB at three Olympics and travelled with England to the FIFA World Cup in Russia in 2018 - particularly to work on managing head injury and human factors around emergency situations where up to 300 million people could be watching! 

Finally I am the current chair of the Scottish Government Concussion advisory group who produced the first nation in the world to have a single concussion guideline for all grassroots sport. 

Links and resources:

Scottish common concussion guidance for all sport.

https://sportscotland.org.uk/media/3382/concussionreport2018.pdf

Second impact case story 

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/health/i-will-know-ben-did-not-die-in-vain-if-i-never-hear-a-player-being-asked-if-they-want-to-carry-on-after-a-head-injury-37935260.html

Berlin concussion consensus document 

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/51/11/838

NES PBSGL

https://www.cpdconnect.nhs.scot/courses/