Pediatric Sports Medicine Podcast

  It’s Springtime. Baseball season is underway. I don’t know about you, but my offices are a never-ending stream of young throwers from about February to November. There are many reasons for this, of course, but what is the latest research telling us about our young throwers and what can we do to advocate for these young throwers to hopefully reduce the likelihood of them needing to seek out sport...

  Fractured collarbones. When I first started my career, the party line for a fractured clavicle was if both ends of the collarbone were in the same state, it will heal fine, and let them be. Then it seemed like there was a push to treat more clavicle fractures surgically, even in the pediatric and adolescent population. But was that really the right way to go? Was our previous thinking incorrect?...

  We are continuing with our Profiles in Pediatric Sports Medicine series with our next guest as a recently retired physician from the East Coast. I’ve personally known this guest since my days as a resident interested in Pediatric Sports Medicine as I met him at our American Academy of Pediatrics and AMSSM meetings. He has had a never-ending passion for advocacy for our young athletes and I actua...

  What do you think about when you hear someone say Long Term Athlete Development? Do you picture the elite club travel team athlete competing at a high level? The athlete who is part of the professional team development league? How about the grade school kid who wants to just get better at sports in general? Likely most would think about the athlete who is at the elite level hoping to be on the t...

  It is March 2023, and it is National Athletic Training Month again. We are in year three of doing a special episode highlighting athletic trainers. Today on the podcast, I am joined by three athletic trainers who knew me at the very start of my career during my fellowship training at Vanderbilt. Today is the Vanderbilt Edition of our Athletic Training Episode. However, the Salter Harris I fibula...

  When I did my training, the standard party line was that if a skeletally immature patient has an ankle injury, is tender over the distal fibular physis and did not really have significant tenderness over the lateral ankle ligaments, the injury should be assumed to be a Salter Harris I fracture. If you aren’t familiar with the Salter Harris classification system for fractures affecting the growth...

  Mindfulness. We hear this word a lot these days. The Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of mindfulness is the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one’s thoughts, emotions, or experiences on a moment-to-moment basis. If your hospital system or workplace is like mine, you’ve probably heard of practicing mindfulness and even some modules at work y...

  In the world of sports medicine, I’m sure there are many who would question whether Esports should be considered an actual sport. Interestingly, I don’t think many of us would argue that cheerleading is a sport. However, many of us aren’t advocating to our state high school athletic associations to get it considered a sport in their eyes. Esports continue to grow. There are numerous concerns an...

  Ice Hockey. Although many think of it as a regional sport, with indoor ice rinks, hockey can be played pretty much anywhere. Having lived most of my life in the Midwest, hockey has been a fixture in those places, Wisconsin, Missouri, Illinois, although I’ve never played the sport myself. In fact, I’m horrible on ice skates. But even though I personally suck on ice skates, I have a deep appreciat...

  We want to start off the New Year with a new feature to the Podcast. I’m calling it “Pediatric Sports Medicine Profiles.” There have been some significantly instrumental individuals who have been influential in this landscape whether it be training many of us, people who have completed critical research, those who have been leaders of major organizations, or were just trailblazers in the profess...

  If you hadn’t heard of commotio cordis prior to this past week, you likely have now. On January 2, 2023, Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills made a tackle, got up, and collapsed backwards onto the field. CPR was administered due to cardiac arrest. Many of us in sports medicine started to speculate, for better or worse, a differential diagnosis and commotio cordis was commonly suggested on social m...

  We’re back from a little hiatus. I don’t know about you, but it’s been a super busy fall with sports injuries. I’ve seen some pretty weird injuries this fall and saw a surge in some injuries in my office, such as ACL tears. And it just seems like overall there’s been a lot going on in general. Plus it doesn’t help for a podcast host to get parainfluenza and get laryngitis. But with all that asid...

  When I give lectures on growth plate problems, I often present a slide with an x-ray of a knee in a kid who hasn’t fully finished their growth. I outline where the physis, or the growth plate, is. Then we show the metaphysis, or the area between the growth plate and the shaft of the bone, then the epiphysis, the area between the growth plate and the joint space, and finally the diaphysis, or the...

  What kind of reaction do you get when you read a news article reading about a grade-school kid who's running a marathon? It typically doesn't get news coverage because it doesn't happen often, but if you look at comments on social media there are often lots of comments about the cruelty of it. The "craziness of the parents", even comments of it being child abuse. Let's bump it up to middle schoo...

  I remember the excitement I had receiving my first sideline team bag as a fellow at Vanderbilt. It was certainly a sturdy bag as I still have it and it has held up better than any bag I’ve purchased since then. It was stocked with various supplies and over the years has seen things come and go from it. As I’ve gone on further in my career, I honestly use it less and less. It’s more of my ‘credib...

  Groin pain. Literally can be a pain to deal with as a sports medicine professional. The source and location of the pain can be vague and may lead someone down the wrong path to diagnosis and treatment. Most people in sports medicine have heard of a sports hernia. It is a source of groin pain but can be somewhat of a diagnostic challenge. Today on the podcast, we will cover the so-called sports h...

  While recently browsing through Twitter, I noticed a debate in the athletic training twitter world about whether or not icing is beneficial following an ankle sprain. There was some significant discussion on both sides of the issue, so I thought I’d do a little dive into the research out there and get everyone current on what we know about the role of ice following an acute lateral ankle sprain....

  If I was a cleverer Podcast host, I would have timed this better and had my 50th episode coincide with this. But - alas I’m on episode 47. As I turn 50 today, I wanted to take some time to reflect on my career and those who have helped me get to where I am today. And since I have my own podcast, a place where I can record things to put out there for anyone to listen to, what better avenue than t...

  As sports medicine professionals, we interact with athletes at all levels. I was one of a handful of sports medicine physicians who started from a pediatric background and work with an NFL team as one of their team physicians. It was a part of my career I won’t ever forget, and no question gave me additional ‘street cred’, so to speak, in the sports medicine world. But for me it wasn’t about bei...

  Athletes with trouble breathing are nothing new. Obviously, athletes may get winded with deconditioning or just a really hard work out. But what about when it isn’t expected? Commonly we think of asthma and as an asthmatic since college, it is a near and dear problem to me. But not all things that may seem like asthma are truly asthma. Today on the podcast we will discuss some things to consider...

  Iron Deficiency is an often under recognized source of reduced performance and fatigue particularly in female athletes. Endurance athletes seem to experience this more commonly, but we certainly do see other athletes who may have these struggles as well. But are we diagnosing and treating it properly? I’ve heard several speakers on this topic over the last 5 years and it has revolutionized my ap...

  It is March 2022, and it is National Athletic Training Month. Last year we did an episode with 3 athletic trainers with whom I’ve crossed paths and enjoyed it so much I wanted to do that again. Today on the podcast, I am joined by three athletic trainers who have all played a role in my life in my development as a sports medicine physician. I’ve learned from them, and I hope you will all learn a...

  Back pain in the young athlete. It’s something we often don’t think twice about in adults, but in kids, back pain in the active athletic kid is often a different beast. One of the more common conditions is the spondylolysis or a stress fracture of the pars interarticularis. It is a condition that can go undiagnosed for a long time. Today on the podcast we have an expert in the area of spondyloly...

  On February 22, 2002, at 2:22PM the airwaves of Madison, Wisconsin would never be the same again. College student radio could finally be considered legit and truly legal. Many may not realize that the landscape for student radio at the largest university in the state of Wisconsin was looking bleak for nearly a decade prior to officially turning on the transmitter for WSUM 91.7FM. There were lega...

  It’s almost been 2 decades since I entered the world of pediatric sports medicine. It’s been over 30 years since I was in high school sports. The typical 3 sport athlete has certainly become less common since then, but certainly not extinct. Both boys and girls have seen their sports become more organized, starting training at younger ages, and an ever-increasing focus on year-round participatio...