Including athlete voices in your sport and exercise medicine organisation – it’s time!

Abstract

Increasingly, patient and public engagement/involvement in healthcare and research is being emphasised as a critical element to better outcomes.1 2 While progress has been made in the general population, the same is not true in high-performance athletes. Given that athletes have important lived experiences to share, they should be viewed as equal contributors on research and healthcare teams so that research and care align with priorities that matter to them.3 For the same reasons, athletes should engage with and inform the missions and activities of our sport and exercise medicine (SEM) organisations. The mission statement of the Canadian Academy of Sport and Exercise Medicine (CASEM) is: ‘to forge a strong, collective voice for sport and exercise medicine; to be a leader in advancing the art and science of sport and exercise medicine, including health promotion and disease prevention, for the benefit of all Canadians’. As CASEM President and Olympian (JST), my primary objective was to ensure that our ‘strong, collective voice’ included athletes (ie, the people we care for on a daily basis) to facilitate they have a say in setting the priorities for the organisation. Co-led with patient engagement specialist (DPR), we convened an Athlete Advisory Council for CASEM. One of the first athlete reactions was ‘How come this isn’t already done?’ A valid question given the positive evidence that when athletes have a say in their own training, performance and healthcare, things change for the better.4 In sporting cultures where openness about injuries is encouraged, athletes reported better outcomes.5 Moreover, athletes may also have specific needs to consider that differ from the clinical or …