The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Tribune Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

IN an effort to bring awareness to concussion education, Dr Myron Rolle and the Caribbean Neurosurgery Foundation (CNF) hosted a Concussion Symposium in conjunction with the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture (MYSC).

Under the theme, “The Awakening Power of Sports”, Rolle and the panelists yesterday discussed some of the most important issues in the industry at the Thomas A Robinson Stadium.

Topics presented included an overview of sports concussion history, mechanism and assessment tools, long-term effects, risk and mitigations, cultural stigma and self-reporting, treatment recovery and return to play, and finally, the future of concussion safety and protocols in The Bahamas.

Rolle and his panel addressed the group of local sporting leaders on the cultural shift and holistic approach that must be taken for concussion education in The Bahamas to progress.

“As far as the culture is concerned, it starts with promotion awareness, advocacy, it starts with the people that have capital and influence, it starts with leadership, implementing it early to our young individuals in primary school so they grow up with the understanding that getting an ACL tear is less severe but it should be carried with the same level of value and importance as having a concussion or brain injury.

“You can recover from your limp, you can go on to become a phenomenal educator, law enforcement officer, physician, businessperson, or whatever you want to be, but if your brain is affected at an early age you have limited options to progress to the goals, dreams and ambitions you have set for yourself,” Rolle said.

“It will take a holistic approach, it’s multi-dimensional, it has to come from everywhere. There has to be collective buy-in and until that occurs then we may still have the antiquated approach that we still often see when it comes to concussions, brain injury and how we think about it as loosely as ‘it’s not real, toughen up, get back on the field, get back on the court, get back on the pitch’, those days are over. We can’t operate like that anymore and I’m looking forward to helping in that fight.”

The CNF and MYSC established both recovery and return-to-play protocols for athletes that have suffered head trauma. Throughout both protocols, medical professionals will monitor for development of signs and symptoms.

The organisations also established a National Sports Concussion Committee to oversee, govern and pay close attention to concussions and head traumas that happen in the country.

The group will include executive, health and science, research and operating divisions.

“We need to have a robust conversation about some of the particular nuances and details that go into our Bahamian athletes. We need to understand that if anyone steps outside or moves away from the recovery protocol or other things we are trying to put in place that they cannot do it with impunity and that it needs to be addressed,” Rolle said. “We need to take it as seriously as someone using performance enhancing drugs, or someone betting on the sport, or just doing anything nefarious our outside of the rules of what we expect our athletes and coaches and federations to do.”

Other members of the panel included Dr Magnus Ekede, professor and chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Princess Margaret Hospital and CNF member; Niyi Odewade, cardiothoracic medical student; Mike Norvel, Florida State Seminoles head coach, and Jim Whalden, New England Patriots athletic trainer.

Rolle’s accolade-filled résumé first came into public view as an All-American football player at Florida State University. He went on to become a CoSIDA All-Academic Hall of Fame member, member of President Clinton’s Global Initiative Lead Team, one of three Bahamian Rhodes Scholars and a Paul Farmer Global Surgery Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School. Through his foundation, Rolle previously established his “Play-4-Progress” programme in the Bahamas and aimed to introduce three basic principles to its participants – the fundamentals of American football, education and personal development. Rolle played three seasons with the Seminoles and was selected by the Tennessee Titans in the 2010 NFL Draft.

In 2012, he signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers and announced his retirement from the NFL in 2013. He went on to graduate from FSU’s College of Medicine in 2017 and was matched to a neurosurgery residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.