A chara, – As a doctor (and former hurler) who deals with musculoskeletal injuries on a daily basis I have been intrigued for some years by the behaviour of many of my colleagues at intercounty and indeed local hurling and football matches. I refer to the scurrying onto the field at regular intervals when a player goes down.
The “dochtuir” is generally accompanied by a “physio” or a “chartered physiotherapist”. What follows is a fairly standard routine – vigorous rubbing of the painful part, application of water or “magic spray”. This is followed in most instances by a miraculous and complete recovery (unless the player has a serious injury, which will not respond to vigorous rubbing, or water, or magic spray).
These interventions have little if any effect on minor injuries. Which begs the question, why are highly-trained professionals indulging in this activity?
I suspect the reasons are mostly psychological and have little to do with science. A comparison might be drawn with the child who hurts himself and is conditioned to expect a kiss from Mammy to the injured part in order to recover. But why have modern GAA players come to be conditioned in this way? The impact of these pitch invasions is considerable in terms of match disruption; there is also a suspicion that players sometimes feign injury to disrupt the opposition’s momentum.
Would it be too much to ask our medical teams in particular to take example from other contact sports (rugby in particular), and replace the quackery with some honesty, so as to allow the rest of us to enjoy our sport with the minimum of interruption. – Is mise,
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