SPORTS MEDICINE LETTER

Published by the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine
October 2000

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!
AMSSM 2001 ANNUAL MEETING

The AMSSM is excited to hold a joint Annual Meeting this year with our AOASM colleagues. The meeting is scheduled for April 7-11, 2001 at the Hyatt San Antonio, in San Antonio, Texas. Some of this year's topics include:

Neuropych Testing - One main objective of the program will be to provide the needed guidelines to anyone wanting to begin testing with their team.

Cervical Spine - This session will have the best speakers available just as was the case last year. The topic for this year is the Cervical Spine and Spinal Cord Contusion, Brachial Plexus Injury, Disc Injury and Spinal Stenosis will be among the areas covered.

Cycling Session - There will be many outstanding speakers on this program including the ACSM Exchange Speaker and a SPECIAL GUEST, GREG LEMOND. The program will look at all angles of cycling from amateur to professional; the training, injuries and the mental aspects.

Radiology Session - The main objectives of this session will be to review the role of 1) MRI in the Evaluation and Management of Stress Injuries 2) The Role of US and Color Dopler in the Diagnosis and Management of Patellar and Archillies Tendonosis 3) Pitfalls and Pearls in the Technique and Interpretation of MRI and 4) The Role of MRA in the Evaluation of Sports Related Injuries.

Instructional Lectures - This year there will be four "Instructional Lectures" with 25 participants each on Sunday through Tuesday from 6:30 a.m. - 7:45 a.m. Lecture topics include: Use and Abuse of Orthotics, The Role of Evidenced Based Principles in Sports Medicine, The Role of Propioception Re-Training From Shoulder Injury in Sports and Others. Course will be limited.

In addition, this year's meeting will also include Multiple Osteopathic Workshops, Case and Research Presentations, Exchange Lectures, A Family Passover Seder, Olympics, and much more. See you there!

ABSTRACT DEADLINE JANUARY 10, 2001

Included in this mailing are the Case, Research and 2 Minute Abstract Forms. Please read the instructions carefully before submitting your abstracts. Abstract Deadline is January 10, 2001.

ADVANCED TEAM PHYSICIAN COURSE

The 2000 Advanced Team Physician Course will be held November 30 - December 3 at Hilton Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Space is still available. Call the AMSSM Headquarters for more information (913) 327-1415.

AMSSM COMMITTEE REPORTS

Diversity Committee
Co-Chairs: Patrice Eiff, M.D., Luis Palacios, M.D.

The Diversity Committee identified the following goals:

Goal 1: Establish an Active Committee.

Goal 2: Develop a New Member Orientation Session for the Annual Meeting.

Objectives:
1. Work with the program committee to establish a time in the annual meeting for the new member orientation
2. Define the content for the session
3. Develop a handout for the session
4. Work with the Internet Committee to establish a New Member Area on the AMSSM website that would include the same information that is covered in the session at the annual meeting.

Goal 3: Establish a system for tracking and reporting the demographics of AMSSM members.

Objectives:
1. Determine what demographic information is currently collected on AMSSM members.
2. Survey the current membership regarding race/ ethnicity and enter that information into our membership database.
3. Add an optional question regarding race on our current membership application in order to capture this information for future members.
4. Survey fellowship directors to get gender and race information about current fellows.
5. Obtain the gender breakout of the past years' fellows, if possible.
6. Publish membership demographic information each year in our newsletter and on our website to track our progress in achieving more diversity in AMSSM.

Goal 4: Establish a system for tracking and reporting the demographics of speakers (invited speakers/panelists/moderators) at the Annual Meeting.

Objectives:
1. Analyze the meeting schedules from prior Annual Meetings to determine the percentage of men and women speakers.
2. Develop a "Diversity Report Card" which will be published each year in our newsletter to track our progress in achieving more diversity in our Annual Meeting.
3. Devise a letter from the Diversity Committee to be sent to all Annual Meeting invited speakers which encourages them to include information about gender or racial/cultural aspects of their topics.

Education Committee
Jim Swenson, M.D., Chair

The main focus of the Education Committee has been to assist with the preparation of the Case and Research Presentations It was decided that electronic submissions at this time would be too ambitious. The ultimate aim will be to provide quality presentations for the further education of our members through the website or on CD rom. We will propose a pilot program and would like to include in the registration materials for the meeting an announcement that certain "presenters" may be asked to provide their slides in electronic format for use as part of our pilot program. Most committee members will be providing sample programs.

The Committee is on schedule to provide "instructional lectures" for this years Annual Meeting. The Program Committee will go out of our way to make sure all "specialty" meetings are scheduled and that nothing will be displaced off the program by the Instructional Lectures.

Fellowship Committee
CO-Chairs: Mike Henehan, D.O., Robert Dimeff, M.D.

The Fellowship Committee identified the following goals:

Goal 1. Establish a Fellowship Assistance Program Progress: A Draft of a Fellowship Assistance Levels Program has been developed along with proposed charges for services.

Goal 2. Develop an ACGME task force to revisit fellowship requirements.

Progress: ACGME contacts and interested AMSSM members have been identified. Review process to be started by November.

Goal 3. Develop a strong website presence on the AMSSM website

a) Academic Components (Journal Club, X-Ray Teaching File, Curriculum Sharing, Case of the Month)
b) Research (Collaborative Research, Research Workshop)
c) Administrative (Fellowship Assistance Program Current listing of Fellowship Programs Fellowship Directors Forum/List Serve/Job Forums)

Progress: Interested committee members have been identified. Work
collaboratively with website committee over the next several months.

Goal 4. Complete the Fellowship Program Survey.

Progress: Surveys have been mailed to AMSSM and AOASM members as well as the people who have sat for the most recent CSQ exam. Survey return phase is almost complete and collation of data will begin soon with the plan to present at the 2001 meeting.

International Committee
Chair: Mark Batt, MB.B., Chair

At the International Committee Meeting the following issues were discussed:

1. AMSSM Website Development - This will facilitate international collaboration with AMSSM and will require use to liaison with Cindy Chang, M.D., Chair man of the Internet Committee.

2. International Membership of AMSSM - This may initially be facilitated through the AMSSM list serve and may ultimately develop into full international memberships.

3. AMSSM Conference Exchange Lecturers - We need to establish contacts and develop sites for future AMSSM exchange lecturers. Through existing contacts initial exchange lecturers could be easily made in Canada, Australia and United Kingdom. Australian representatives will be asked to attend the ACSM meeting in Indianapolis and possibly develop an Australian visiting lecturer for the AMSSM meeting in San Antonio. Progress: At the ACSM Indianapolis meeting Prof. Peter Fricker from the Australian Institute has agreed in principle to come as guest overseas speaker to San Antonio 2001. Program Chair Jim Swenson is aware.

4. International Database - Considerable data exists from previous meetings of the International Relations Committee. This comprises lists of contacts abroad which may be of use for those planning medical coverage in countries outside of the USA and may provide a secondary source of information for lecturers and visiting contacts. Progress: Awaiting data in electronic format.

5. AMSSM Traveling Fellowship - We will try to follow the AOSSM traveling fellowship plan. Need to determine funding.

6. It was briefly discussed as to whether or not it would be practical to hold combined meetings/conferences with other International Sports Medicine organizations. It was recognized that logistically this may be difficulty because of timing and costs, etc. It was determined that we need to establish a database of international meetings particularly with regards to timing. At a future Board Meeting the practicality of having combined meetings will be discussed and it maybe appropriate in the first instance to consider holding combined meetings every 5 years.

Internet Committee
CO-Chairs: Cindy Chang, M.D., and Dave Jenkinson, D.O.

The Internet Committee had two conference calls, and we have made significant progress in some of our goals, thanks to the hard work of our members.

Sports Medicine Primary Care Fellowships
Over 140 sports medicine fellowships, including both primary care and orthopedic, have been accumulated. Included are also programs in Canada and Australia. Using this information, a letter and questionnaire have been mailed to each program asking for more specific information. This data will be entered on our website under a new section "Sports Medicine Fellowships". The next goal is to develop an on-line form so that new fellowships or those fellowships who have changes can directly submit this information on our website, and the additions/changes can be made quickly. It is our hope that this succinct, updated information on fellowships, will interest more applicants to visit our website and become familiar with AMSSM. The fellowship programs will also become more involved with our organization.

AMSSM Board of Directors/Committee
Chairs Rob Monaco, M.D. e-mailed all committee chair members for information. His goal is to have each chair list his or her committee's current responsibilities and long range goals, and also to post this on the website. We felt that having each committee identify these goals and responsibilities would help in creating more interest in our organization, as both our members and the public see what we hope to accomplish.

Membership Section
Check out the AMSSM website www.amssm.org and click under the "Find A Doc" section. There is a public accessible directory of all our members' business address. If you find your address is not there, please don't worry we will be allowing members to update their own information. More information will be forth coming.

Publications and Position Statements
A hard copy of the PPE history and physical exam can now be downloaded from our website for physicians to review and utilize. Due to copyright restrictions, the entire monograph could not be published on the website.

Much hard work and lots of time have been put into reviewing the links in this section for relevant content, discarding those which are not specific to our constituency and making the site more user friendly.

A future goal of this committee is to contact other professional societies and ask to be placed on their website as a link. However, we do not want this until our website contains more content.

Conferences
A conference call was held September 6 to discuss the possibility of submitting research and case study abstracts on-line. The decision was made that this year's conference we would aim to have the abstract form available off the website. In addition, copies would be mailed to both AMSSM and AOASM members. Those who wish to submit abstracts would be asked to send in a hard copy as well as provide the information on a disc.

We have recently uploaded a "AMSSM Conference Submission Form" under Conferences which gives programs, organizations, etc. an opportunity to submit their own conference information that we would post on our site.

Job Postings
Preliminary discussion has been held among our members regarding this site. We will be working closely with Fellowship Committee about this topic. We believe the AMSSM members should not be charged to either post job positions or post their availability, but we do think that non-AMSSM physicians, institutions, etc. should be charged a fee to post position or list their names.

Top 5 Priorities for the upcoming year

1. Job Board
2. Case of the Month
3. Site for Collaborative Research and Sources of Funding
4. Speakers Bureau
5. Putting our AMSSM Newsletter on the Website

Membership Committee Report Committee
Chair: Karl B Fields, M.D.

Over the past several months we have moved forward on our number one priority. Developing a provisional category for resident members and recruiting from residency programs. We have already sent out a letter to Family Practice Residencies and will begin to target Pediatrics and Internal Medicine. Later we will target other residencies.

We have also identified committee members who are willing to serve as e-mail contacts for any residents with questions. Emails will be divided among committee members by geographical allocation. The application form was modified to fit the residency category.

We have a lot of positive beginnings, but the success of this will be measured in the number of new members.

The AMSSM would like to welcome its new members

O. Adebunmi Beckley, M.D.
Stephen K. Badolato, M.D.
Lori A. Boyajian, D.O.
Darrin L. Bright, M.D.
James R. Clugston, M.D.
David Marshall Duany, M.D.
Michael Ellerbusch, M.D.
Andrew J. Gregory, M.D.
Aideen Henry, MB, BCL, BAO
Jeff C. Laubenthal, M.D.
Jeff C. Leggett, M.D.
Dawn D. Mattern, M.D.
William Mendoza, M.D.
Steven J. Meyers, M.D.
Grant Morrison, M.D.
Jodi A. Pelegrin, D.O., A.T.C.
Timothy D. Pelkowski, M.D.
Brian Sloan, M.D.
Teresa S. Stadler, M.D.

PR Committee
CO-Chairs: Margot Putukian, M.D., Wade Lillegard, M.D.

The main focus of the PR Committee over the past several months has been to come up with the content of the AMSSM brochure to be used by our membership and by AMSSM staff. The intent was for us to have a tool with which we could introduce ourselves and what we do to our health care providers, other memberships, as well as patients. The final edition will be submitted for approval at the December Board meeting.

The next step is for us to come up with two additional brochures, offshoots of the main brochure with a different focus/audience. The first would be a brochure in representing who we are and what we do to insurance companies. The second is to introduce who we are and how to get involved for use in medical school, residency, and fellowship training.

Another goal for the PR Committee is to revamp and reconsider the idea of the Speakers Bureau. This is an area that could be well utilized and use in conjunction with the AMSSM net forum that currently exists as our forum for exchange ideas.

Other goals of the PR Committee include:

1. Develop Community Service Programs
2. Work with Education and Interrelated Commit- tees
3. Media Resource Development
4. Development/Distribution of Additional AMSSM Materials; Position Stands
5. Increase Community Awareness
6. Follow other Board and Executives Directives

JOB OPENING

Primary Care Sports Medicine
Collegeville, Pennsylvania
Outstanding opportunity available for a new associate to join a progressive, well-established, fellowship trained sports medicine orthopedist with a rapidly expanding sports medicine practice. Immediate team physician availability's at the high school and collegiate levels. Looking for highly motivated individual to further build and expand this program and assist with conferences and seminars, etc. Candidate should be board-eligible or certified with fellowship training in primary care sports medicine. We offer excellent salary, productivity incentives, favorable call schedule, and partnership track. Two brand new primary office sites. Start date commiserate with completion of 2000-2001 specialty training program. Collegeville is a suburb conveniently located just 30 minutes outside Philadelphia in a tremendous growth corridor. Convenient to New York and Baltimore with excellent schools and an ideal place to raise a family.

Please send a letter of interest and curriculum vitae to:

Alan E. Cooper, M.D.
The Orthopedic and Athletic Medicine Center
599 Arcola Road
Collegeville, PA 19115
Phone: 610-409-6200
Fax: 610-409-6216

If you have job positions open, please call the AMSSM Headquarters at (913) 327-1415 or Fax (913) 327-1491.