Team players

By Girard Hengen | Pictured above: Dr. Cole Beavis

Oh for the glamourous lifestyle of a sports team doctor – the travel, the crowds, the cheering.

Dr. Mike Nicholls, a Regina physician, recalls his stint as team doctor for the Canadian national wrestling squad. The team operated on a shoestring budget and on most trips abroad, the medical entourage numbered exactly one.

“If we decided to send a physician, often that guy was doing taping and dealing with medical crises and sometimes even massaging or warming up the athletes. It was a real dowhat-you-can MacGyvering in a lot of situations on the fly.”

No matter where he went, there were rewards, and challenges, Dr. Nicholls said.

“The thing that I enjoyed the most about working with the national wrestling program was these were world-class athletes who toiled away in obscurity in Canada, but who were literally household names in some countries where wrestling is a popular sport. We’d go to places in the world where we always joked it’s not safe to drink the water, and if it’s not safe to drink the water, wrestlers will go there.”

Dr. Nicholls played most sports while growing up in Regina, but was not really a master of any. He returned to Regina after graduating from the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine, and worked in family practice and emergency. While in emergency he was asked to help the physician who covered University of Regina hockey games. It was an eye-opener.

“My initial reaction when I went to a U of R game was, ‘Holy crap, somebody could get hurt here.’ I was impressed by the level of contact and how fast it is.”

When the U of R’s physician moved, Dr. Nicholls worked at the university in a small family medicine clinic, and fell into sports medicine almost by accident. He started reading about sports medicine and attending conferences. He joined the Canadian Academy of Sports Exercise and Medicine (CASEM), which grants a diploma in sports medicine to physicians who complete training in the field and write a certification exam. He wrote the exam in 1998 and received his diploma.

From there his experiences as a team physician snowballed – from under-18 world hockey championships in Europe to the world junior hockey championships in Moscow in 2001. He continued to work with wrestling teams at the U of R, and the national men’s and women’s teams that travelled to Europe. He was medical director for Wrestling Canada from 2005 to 2013.

Dr. Nicholls is a long-time team physician for the Regina Pats, and for four years has helped with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. He used his family practice to supplement his sports medicine work, but left family practice in 2008 to work at the RCMP Training Academy in Regina. The switch to the civil service and his growing family put an end to his international sports travels, and medical experiences that were neither planned, nor even foreseen, back in his medical school days.

“I had no idea throughout my medical training that there was a world of sports medicine,” he said. “I’d always been active and I understood a fair amount. I liked MSK (musculoskeletal) medicine, I knew it was a good practice, but I never thought of it as a specialty in and of itself.”

Dr. Nicholls is clinical director of a post-graduate fellowship position in Regina in which a family medicine resident takes a third year training in sports and exercise medicine. That physician then receives Certificate of Added Competency credentials.

At the provincial level, the Saskatchewan Academy of Sports Medicine (SASM) has a storied history dating to its establishment in 1975. The president of SASM attends the SMA’s Representative Assembly as head of the section of Sports Medicine. The academy’s founding members were pioneers in recognizing the unique care needs of active and athletic patients, said Dr. Cole Beavis.

Dr. Beavis completed medical school and an orthopedic surgery residency at the U of S, and is a faculty member in the department of surgery in Saskatoon. He has a CASEM diploma, and fellowship training in arthroscopy and sport medicine. He hopes more students pursue sports medicine as a career, as there is a shortage in Saskatchewan. The fellowship position in Regina helps, and he is hopeful a second fellowship will be established in Saskatoon. Dr. Beavis is a team physician for Huskie Athletics and has travelled internationally on 15 occasions for Hockey Canada, Skate Canada and Wrestling Canada. He has also provided sports medicine coverage to many local events.

When the Saskatchewan Rush lacrosse team came to Saskatoon, Dr. Beavis reached out as then-president of SASM and a board member of the Sports Medicine & Science Council of Saskatchewan, a diverse group involving many health disciplines. He let Rush officials know Saskatchewan had professionals with the knowledge and skills to support the team, and ended up as medical director and head team physician – a position he has enjoyed.

“There’s no question the collegiality, the cohesion, and what makes a team a team – it’s a great environment to be around,” Dr. Beavis said. “I’ve been lucky enough to have worked at the highest levels internationally with various Canadian national teams that go away for two or three weeks. You come back with a spring in your step and are inspired to succeed because that’s what teams do all day. Everything they do is singularly focused on success. Just being around that is inspirational.”

Another attraction to sports medicine is the multi-disciplinary approach to care, which would ideally happen with all patients, but doesn’t, Dr. Beavis said. Barriers don’t exist, and health professionals will discuss as a group how to get an athlete back on the court or field. This team could include physicians, health science professionals, physiotherapists, strength and conditioning experts, dieticians, sports psychologists, chiropractors, massage therapists, and others.

“It would be fantastic if every patient in a hospital had all of those professionals working with a single focus to get them back, but it doesn’t always work that way.”◆