Helping community can be as easy as sharing what we know.

I spent a hot August afternoon recently in the theater at Galena High School in south Reno. I was there at the invitation of the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association to present to football and soccer coaches on the topic of head and spine injury. 

The idea of the presentation was to lay out the types of injuries that can occur on the field and to offer the coaches some tools for assessing severity and appropriate response. To those of us in healthcare this was all Neuro 101 stuff, but to the assembled audience this was information with the potential to save a life or to preserve a young athlete’s lifelong physical function.

Those of us who practice neurosurgery, or any number of other highly specialized fields of medicine, must remember that we are a tremendous resource for our communities. By simply sharing what we know, we can make a real difference in someone else’s life. By offering others the tools to better understand their bodies and how to keep them healthy, we might eliminate one more emergency, one more tragedy and keep one more person from becoming one of our patients.

I left that group of coaches with a handout to keep in their pockets–a guide to assessing head and spine trauma in the field. This season, I hope none of them needs it, but I hope they keep it close by just in case.

Joseph Walker, M.D.