Since its inception, hundreds, or perhaps thousands of years ago, when the first person laid on a wooden plank and rode a wave to shore, the sport of surfing has been in a continuous state of evolution. The heavy wooden boards ridden by ancient Hawaiians were eventually modified to include a single tail fin. Boards became […]
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The 30 year anniversary of my first surfing conference triggered emails and contact to and from the past and a request to combine and set out how that conference and others changed my life. In 1991 at the age of 38 and single I went to Tavarua for my first Surfers Medical Association conference. Simon Leslie being the
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Surfing is an increasingly popular sport, with an estimated 37 million participants worldwide—a figure likely to rise following surfing’s appearance at the rescheduled Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The COVID-19 pandemic has and has had an impact on the global surfing community and there is a need for guidelines for safe return for
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Female with no significant past medical history presented to the Emergency Department with right lower extremity pain and deformity after a kitesurfing accident. The patient was launching her kite at a known kitesurfing spot in Rhode Island, when a gust of wind picked her up and launched her in the air until she collided
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30-year-old male who overfoiled (foil lifts above water-level) and crashed at high speed. His foot was grazed by the tail fin (stabilizer) of his foil causing a superficial laceration and contusion to the medial aspect of his right mid-foot as seen in photos above. The wound was irrigated, and steri-strips were placed across the
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A lot of surfing takes place at unguarded, wave-exposed beaches in areas where rip-currents are strong and casual beach goers can and do get pulled out to sea. We surfers are comfortable out in the ocean, spend a lot of time in the water, and are tethered to a flotation device (our surfboards) so it […]
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It is heartening to see that the field of surfing medicine is sufficiently mature that not just one, but two reviews of the existing literature have recently been published. The reviews, both involving researchers at Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia cover acute surfing injuries and overuse/chronic surfing injuries.
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Blue skies, magnificent stars and clean surf marked the 3rd annual SMA Mag Bay conference August July 31- Aug 7th this year. The attendees were a mix of ages and backgrounds, covering multiple disciplines and ranging from a recent college graduate to one octogenarian who was killing it on the big sets. We were a […]
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All Covid, all the time, or at least that’s what it feels like to me as an emergency physician on the East Coast of the US. But of course, whatever you do and wherever you surf, the global pandemic has affected you. And, unfortunately, it seems far from over. Way back in May, I asked my wizened uncle, 92-year-old professor emeritus […]
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