By the quarters ... Rugby

Player
|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------------- mechanistic  

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

Team Player - Professional Sportsperson

"World Rugby"

Mild head injuries, which often cause concussion, are the most common reported match injury in professional rugby union in England, ALAMY

"Sir Ian McGeechan has led calls for radical change before a rugby union player dies on the pitch, branding the game unnecessarily dangerous and saying that World Rugby would be accused of negligence if it allows the situation to continue. In a strongly worded letter to Bill Beaumont, the World Rugby chairman, McGeechan and other British and Irish Lions greats, have urged the governing body to reduce the number of available replacements from eight to four to limit the impact that fresh players can make by coming off the bench in the final quarter." p.1.

"Almost a quarter of professional rugby players may have brain damage, the first study of its kind suggests.

Scientists used advanced brain imaging and analysis to compare elite rugby players with rowers and other noncontact athletes as well as people who played no sport.

Using methods often applied to the study of patients with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s,, the team found that rugby players had significant damage to their brain’s white matter, its 'wiring'."
The Times, Thursday July 22 2021.

Hathaway, A., Lions legends: Make rugby safer, Sport, The Times, 14 August, 2021, p.1.

Image source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/quarter-rugby-players-brain-damage-study-0m8fzrqbg

 

 

Healthcare & Nursing: A select sport

Ed Smith: ‘We can’t risk stars’ mental health by playing too much’

Gruelling summer proved to England selector that player welfare is critical

Apparently, cricket is a late arrival to team building around a strong core and leader and then using a selection strategy. According to Wilde (below*), cricket is playing catch up with baseball (1880) football (1990) and rugby in 2010s. Even with a squad and substitution some players can play too much with physical and mental impacts. Delivery of healthcare is no 'game' even though certain aspects are open to gamification. Everyone understands the need to stay 'fresh' and avoid injury (burnout too). Nurses are not the only professionals and team players to experience the paradox of a break. On the one hand it's like you've never been away; on the other it is great to pick up the threads of cases, caseloads, referrals old and new. Key here too is the cover provided by colleagues while you were temporarily 'off the field'.

"Eddie Jones was asked after England's quarter-final
win over Australia if he felt vindicated in his decision
 to drop George Ford. He said, we didn't drop him, we
changed his role - welcome to modern rugby."

In health, the appliance of sport's 'win ratio' is not in dispute. We can test this! What is the satisfaction rating of the patient and family? But, let's broaden things to include the tax-payer and the patient's recovering, staying that way and becoming self-caring as far as possible. What has to be considered is the context, for example, palliative, end-of-life care and the aims of care.

Nurses have no choice but to 'play'. Sometimes an astute manager will recognise that a specific staff member is best suited to deal with a specific referral, or re-referral even.

As you guessed it, 'selection' does not end there. 

If Hodges' model is the compound field of play, then the selection of care concepts is the vital strategy to assure -

• person-centredness;
• integrated care;
• parity of esteem;
• reflective practice;
• critical thinking;
• a learning encounter;
• preventive approaches
• addressing health and other literacies ?
• teamwork ...

Yes, care assessment, evaluation can be a team effort. The significant care concepts (social determinants ... ), associations and priorities, risks and opportunities can be identified by an individual practitioner and also as a collective effort (group case discussion) and always with the patient / carer - guardian.

So, let Play commence  - and congratulations South Africa!

INDIVIDUAL

|

INTRA- INTER-PERSONAL : SCIENCES

HUMANISTIC -------------------------------------------------- MECHANISTIC

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

GROUP

Simon Wilde, Cricket correspondent, The Big Interview. ‘We can’t risk stars’ mental health by playing too much’. The Sunday Times. October 27 2019. p.9.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ed-smith-interview-risk-mental-health-cricket-brw2t8lxk