injuryupdate
24-04-2005, 02:50 PM
This is a suggestion sent to the ACSP President, regarding the acceptance of sports medicine as a specialty in the UK:
The article below has just appeared on line at the BJSM and indicates sports medicine has achieved specialty status in the UK. As you know, in terms of structure of the training program and exams etc, they are light years behind us in the UK, yet they have managed to achieve specialty status before us. They began their quest at least 5 years after we did, with no full time training program, yet have beaten us to recognition. In New Zealand, where the training and exam program has basically used ACSP resources, they have had specialty status for 6-7 years. A number of European countries have granted sports medicine specialty status as well. The ACSP may well be the only medical college in the world with the status of being deemed "appropriate at providing qualifications for certifying doctors to work in a specialised area of medicine, but NOT considered a specialty college".
The only possible conclusion(s) you can draw from the fact that Australia is falling behind the rest of the world in terms of designating sports medicine as a specialty are that:
either (1) the application approach from the ACSP has been spectacularly unsuccessful and/or
(2) the process for determining specialty status in Australia is inadequate, and/or corrupt etc.
I have to concede that the ACSP has been unwavering in its "straight bat" approach, but the HIC/NASQAC/AMEC/Federal government have all taken advantage of the fact that we won't make waves. The political success of John Howard's government has been that it reacts to any perceived criticism in the media and pretty much nothing else. If our situation isn't ever highlighted by the media, there is no apparent incentive for the government to do anything.
Do whatever you think is in the best interests of the college, but if I was in your position I would do the following:
Write an immediate letter to the AMEC, highlighting that (1) sports medicine rebates are lower than all other recognised areas of medicine in Australia (2) the ACSP is the only college since any ficititious ones from the George Orwell novel that is "working only in a specialised area but is not a specialty" (3) that despite applying for specialty status long before other like countries like NZ and the UK that they have been fully recognised long before we even have a date for assessment (4) that by trying to run down sports medicine relative to other areas of medicine (as is the government approach with OMPs) that the government is contributing to the obesity & inactivity epidemics. Following, order the AMEC to start processing our application within 3 months (with a total time for verdict within 6 months), noting that this is not an inpatient demand as we have actually been waiting for 12 years to be assessed under due process, or we will be forced to embark on a course of the following: (1) asking our patients to sign a petition for the government to recognise the specialty status (2) asking high profile athletes to criticise the government for not doing so (3) making comments to the media that the government is running down the specialty of sports medicine and contributing to the obesity and inactivity epidemics in doing so (4) considering legal action against the AMEC and HIC for compensation because of their failure to properly consider sports medicine. CC the letter to the government ministers, opposition, then leak it to talkback radio after 3 months and start doing (1)-(4) etc.
The "softly, softly" approach has been proven by history to have been a terribly flawed decision by our college.
Extract of article from the BJSM
Br J Sports Med 2005;39:250-251
Sport and exercise medicine
Sport and exercise medicine in the United Kingdom comes of age
M Cullen1 and M Batt2
The 21 February 2005 proved to be a red letter day for sport and exercise (SEM) medicine in the United Kingdom, as the Department of Health announced that it was approving the application for specialty status submitted in early 2004. This ended a process that began in 1998 with the formation of the Intercollegiate Academic Board of Sport and Exercise Medicine (IABSEM), under the auspices the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. Progress was slow until early 2003, when the intervention of the Minister of Sport led to an educational forum and the subsequent formation of a working party tasked with developing the application. The working party consisted of medical professionals, representatives of UK Sport, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, and the Department of Health. The application had to clearly establish that the creation of a new medical specialty was the best and most effective way of answering a service need, or exceptionally a national need. The working party were able to argue for the recognition of SEM on both counts, and furthermore make a case based on the other 11 principles for new specialties as set out in the 2001 Department of Health document, "Developing specialties in medicine".
The timing was favourable, as the government was increasingly turning its attention to strategies to defuse the public health time bomb posed by spiralling national levels of physical inactivity and obesity.1–4 This, coupled with London’s bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games, of which the NHS is a key supporter, provided the perfect backdrop highlighting the relevance of SEM to all levels of society. The new specialty was thus founded on a holistic approach to addressing illness and injury in those who exercise, injury prevention, and the safe use of physical activity in the treatment and prevention of illness with encouragement of wellbeing through exercise and physical activity.
The Department of Health accepted the reasoning that SEM practitioners would be ideally placed not only to provide timely and expert treatment of musculoskeletal injuries which were estimated to cost the NHS some £590 million per annum, but also to coordinate a range of initiatives that would promote physical activity as an effective intervention and prevention tool for a wide spectrum of health problems.
This announcement is undoubtedly a huge breakthrough for SEM, making the UK one of several EU countries to accept SEM as a stand alone medical specialty, some with four year programmes of higher specialty training (HST). However, as the dust settles and we get over the initial euphoria, we must now turn our attention to ensuring that SEM effectively delivers better health for our patients and behaves in a manner consistent with other medical specialties.
The article below has just appeared on line at the BJSM and indicates sports medicine has achieved specialty status in the UK. As you know, in terms of structure of the training program and exams etc, they are light years behind us in the UK, yet they have managed to achieve specialty status before us. They began their quest at least 5 years after we did, with no full time training program, yet have beaten us to recognition. In New Zealand, where the training and exam program has basically used ACSP resources, they have had specialty status for 6-7 years. A number of European countries have granted sports medicine specialty status as well. The ACSP may well be the only medical college in the world with the status of being deemed "appropriate at providing qualifications for certifying doctors to work in a specialised area of medicine, but NOT considered a specialty college".
The only possible conclusion(s) you can draw from the fact that Australia is falling behind the rest of the world in terms of designating sports medicine as a specialty are that:
either (1) the application approach from the ACSP has been spectacularly unsuccessful and/or
(2) the process for determining specialty status in Australia is inadequate, and/or corrupt etc.
I have to concede that the ACSP has been unwavering in its "straight bat" approach, but the HIC/NASQAC/AMEC/Federal government have all taken advantage of the fact that we won't make waves. The political success of John Howard's government has been that it reacts to any perceived criticism in the media and pretty much nothing else. If our situation isn't ever highlighted by the media, there is no apparent incentive for the government to do anything.
Do whatever you think is in the best interests of the college, but if I was in your position I would do the following:
Write an immediate letter to the AMEC, highlighting that (1) sports medicine rebates are lower than all other recognised areas of medicine in Australia (2) the ACSP is the only college since any ficititious ones from the George Orwell novel that is "working only in a specialised area but is not a specialty" (3) that despite applying for specialty status long before other like countries like NZ and the UK that they have been fully recognised long before we even have a date for assessment (4) that by trying to run down sports medicine relative to other areas of medicine (as is the government approach with OMPs) that the government is contributing to the obesity & inactivity epidemics. Following, order the AMEC to start processing our application within 3 months (with a total time for verdict within 6 months), noting that this is not an inpatient demand as we have actually been waiting for 12 years to be assessed under due process, or we will be forced to embark on a course of the following: (1) asking our patients to sign a petition for the government to recognise the specialty status (2) asking high profile athletes to criticise the government for not doing so (3) making comments to the media that the government is running down the specialty of sports medicine and contributing to the obesity and inactivity epidemics in doing so (4) considering legal action against the AMEC and HIC for compensation because of their failure to properly consider sports medicine. CC the letter to the government ministers, opposition, then leak it to talkback radio after 3 months and start doing (1)-(4) etc.
The "softly, softly" approach has been proven by history to have been a terribly flawed decision by our college.
Extract of article from the BJSM
Br J Sports Med 2005;39:250-251
Sport and exercise medicine
Sport and exercise medicine in the United Kingdom comes of age
M Cullen1 and M Batt2
The 21 February 2005 proved to be a red letter day for sport and exercise (SEM) medicine in the United Kingdom, as the Department of Health announced that it was approving the application for specialty status submitted in early 2004. This ended a process that began in 1998 with the formation of the Intercollegiate Academic Board of Sport and Exercise Medicine (IABSEM), under the auspices the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. Progress was slow until early 2003, when the intervention of the Minister of Sport led to an educational forum and the subsequent formation of a working party tasked with developing the application. The working party consisted of medical professionals, representatives of UK Sport, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, and the Department of Health. The application had to clearly establish that the creation of a new medical specialty was the best and most effective way of answering a service need, or exceptionally a national need. The working party were able to argue for the recognition of SEM on both counts, and furthermore make a case based on the other 11 principles for new specialties as set out in the 2001 Department of Health document, "Developing specialties in medicine".
The timing was favourable, as the government was increasingly turning its attention to strategies to defuse the public health time bomb posed by spiralling national levels of physical inactivity and obesity.1–4 This, coupled with London’s bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games, of which the NHS is a key supporter, provided the perfect backdrop highlighting the relevance of SEM to all levels of society. The new specialty was thus founded on a holistic approach to addressing illness and injury in those who exercise, injury prevention, and the safe use of physical activity in the treatment and prevention of illness with encouragement of wellbeing through exercise and physical activity.
The Department of Health accepted the reasoning that SEM practitioners would be ideally placed not only to provide timely and expert treatment of musculoskeletal injuries which were estimated to cost the NHS some £590 million per annum, but also to coordinate a range of initiatives that would promote physical activity as an effective intervention and prevention tool for a wide spectrum of health problems.
This announcement is undoubtedly a huge breakthrough for SEM, making the UK one of several EU countries to accept SEM as a stand alone medical specialty, some with four year programmes of higher specialty training (HST). However, as the dust settles and we get over the initial euphoria, we must now turn our attention to ensuring that SEM effectively delivers better health for our patients and behaves in a manner consistent with other medical specialties.