Sad news out of Buffalo University
- Thread starter ruready4somefootball
- Start date
He collapsed during an off-season workout and died in the hospital a few days later. Tragic!
Terrible to hear.
I'm sorry if this is too much of a diversion from the topic, but with all the young college and HS kids who have had situations akin to this happen, have the policies been updated to require more medical checks before someone is allowed to join the team? Of course this situation could be different and maybe it was not from a prior condition, but it just made me think about it.
I'm sorry if this is too much of a diversion from the topic, but with all the young college and HS kids who have had situations akin to this happen, have the policies been updated to require more medical checks before someone is allowed to join the team? Of course this situation could be different and maybe it was not from a prior condition, but it just made me think about it.
It's a great idea, and I always think of Hank Gathers when stories like this come up.
It's not, and it's an excellent question that deserves a thread of its own regarding the expertise needed to properly identify and evaluate athletes with at risk conditions. As a society, we have always tended to think of physicians as experts in their field. While they are all highly educated and trained, the truth is that the medical profession has evolved into areas of specialization so much so that team doctors, while they may have tremendous expertise in orthopedics and such, could be completely out of their depth identifying a potential heart valve defect, for example. My own primary doctor didn't even know I had liver disease because his medical training was too generalized to even know how to properly test for it. The question then becomes where do you draw the line with testing and staff? A cardiologist, a hematologist, a virologist, a hepatologist? Cardiology seems like a no brainer, but many minor heart defects go undetected for a lifetime until something happens. Plus, see what happens if the Ohio State cardiologist wold tell Urban Meyer "hey, I can't clear Ezekiel Elliott to play in the B1G championship game because when I listen to his heart there's this swish that sounds like a murmur and we will need further testing to clear him to play."
Whether or not it is related to this.. perhaps, at a minimum, a detailed heart checkup should be mandatory for football where exertion can become extreme.. even in training. I suppose basketball and track can task the heart as much or more in some cases... but there are not opposing forces on the body like there is in football.. and for training for such forces. Wrestling maybe.
