Head injury

[PAlbc]

Originally Posted by scrounge

Kind of an oddly written law....so a healthcare professional, as defined in the statute, can release an athlete but no sooner than the day after the event. However, a licensed trainer can release the athlete on the same day, regardless of consultation or opinion from a healthcare professional. Why not just include licensed athletic trainers in the definition of healthcare professional and allow them to release the athlete at any time?

Are trainers generally independent and free from undue influence from emotionally invested parties like coaches? If not, this is a fairly toothless law.

As a Certified Athletic Trainer I'll chime in on this. First I would say that as a medical professional we should be able to conduct ourselves independently enough to ensure our medical decisions are not being influenced by our connection to a respective team. With that being said there are those out there that don't do that, just as there are officials out there that are biased for/against specific teams/coaches/players/etc. Again the majority out there act appropriately professional, you just hope you get to deal with those more often than the others.

With that being said ATCs have been given various levels of authority/responsibility when it comes to concussions. Much of it revolves around where the wording in a state law it goes from "suspected concussion" to "diagnosed concussion". In my state a player can be sent to me for a "suspected concussion/head injury", I can do an evaluation and say "No, this player does not have a concussion, they can return to play today." If I find they likely do have a concussion, they are not only done for the day, but they are done until cleared by a physician (and even can't be cleared by a physician same day).

If the laws and protocols didn't include athletic trainers and non-physicians in the "evaluation" process then essentially any time an official sent a kid out it would be essentially disqualification from participation for the remainder of the day and in some states permanently since wording includes "removed until evaluated by AHP". That's a lot of doctor's visits for kids based off of an official using an abundance of caution if other professionals can't handle the "evaluation" step.

I will say I have had this argument with officials who say "No, he has a concussion and can't return." I usually reply with "Thankfully my medical degree allows me to say your diagnosis of a concussion is wrong and he can return."