ATs hosting secondary school PPE’s

It’s that time of year again for secondary school ATs. The medical eligibility paperwork process for next year is in full swing. Since we just wrapped up hosting our own physical exam night, I have PPE’s on my mind. All the hard work and preparation my worker and I did in advance kept things going as smoothly as it could have gone…even despite the doctors showing up late or cancelling last minute. But, when it was all said and done I couldn’t help but question, why do all this?

We had a simple but specific process in place to have our high school and middle school students sign up for our physical exams. We had been planning, communicating with coaches and pushing out the broadcast in many different ways for weeks leading up to our event. Still, the final result of numbers was more than disappointing. We had such a small percentage of our student athletes that needed physicals actually take advantage of what we offered.

We do this for a few benefits, primarily being cheap and convenient for busy parents and athletes. The goal of hosting PPE’s is to help complete a significant portion of our population’s medical paperwork requirements in a timely manner. It is also a benefit to have our high quality physicians helping. Then we as athletic trainers are immediately aware of the “red flag” positive medical findings and are able to address the next steps with the parents in a timely manner.

After all our efforts of communication, we still didn’t have the back-up we needed from the coaches to get the kids/parents to sign up. For many, following instructions to complete the sign-up was a struggle. Regardless of how many actually come, we put the same amount of time and effort into the details of orchestrating and setting up the event. The nicest way to sum up our event was a BIG hassle with very little outcome. On top of it all there are now many local clinics that offer “cheap and easy” sports physical exams with extended night and weekend hours available. Parents often jump to these options anyways. So, it brings me to ask, was it really worth it? Do we do this again next year?

Consistent with the recommendations of the NATA’s Safe Sports School Award (link below, check it out!!), I feel athletic trainers are responsible to coordinate PPE’s. However, we do this as we communicate to parents how to fulfill the PPE requirements and as we diligently collect the paperwork to ensure that each athlete has completed this and has the necessary medical information on file. From my perspective this does not mean that we are not adequately doing our jobs if we do not host a physical exam event at our school. If you’re a secondary school AT have you had similar struggle hosting PPE’s? Do you feel pressure to provide physicals at your school?

http://www.nata.org/sites/default/files/SafeSportSchoolAwardPacket.pdf