Week 1, Day 1

Welcome to the first day of your internship with Concussion Alliance! We are excited to work with you and to get to know you better. Thank you for joining us.

We are looking forward to helping you get up to speed on the world of concussions in medicine and research while getting to know your fellow interns. You’ll have concussion curriculum every day, and we’ll spend time on remote teamwork and learning more about each other through social activities and group discussions. Toward the end of the week, you’ll get a chance to identify what summer projects you’re most interested in and get a chance to practice your science writing before writing for the newsletter next week.

Our first expert guest speaker is Dan Fogarty on Tuesday; Dan is a concussion patient and advocate, as well as a CA community member. We’ll also be having a discussion on The 5th International Consensus on Concussion in Sport on Friday and a newsletter writing workshop on Wednesday.

Our welcome meeting is at 10 am PST/12 pm CST/1 pm EST today! The Zoom link for this (and all our meetings) is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8428523914?pwd=dXA0TkRocTE2RjJHUzJGNGx6UEJzdz09

There are three Tasks to do today:

Knowledge Evaluation (Please start here before you go on to look at any of the curriculum today)

  • We’ve created a short (and far from comprehensive) Concussion Knowledge Evaluation for you to complete. This evaluation consists of 26 short questions and exists to help us build a better curriculum and give us some educational metrics for grant applications. We know that everyone is coming in with a different level of knowledge, and we wouldn’t have it any other way

  • Here is the link to the evaluation: https://forms.gle/kipZiTxjuDy6M5S36

Concussion Alliance emails

  • You should receive an email notifying you of a new google workspace account from CascadiaNow! – this is your Concussion Alliance email and Google account. The link expires in 24 hours, so please sign in to the email as soon as you get it.

  • Email me with your Concussion Alliance email as soon as you get signed in

  • Once you have a Concussion Alliance email, we’ll be able to give you a Grammarly Premium account!

Sign up for which piece of research you want to write about for your practice newsletter synopsis on this sign-up sheet. Sign-ups are first-come, first-served; you can find the options below.

Work through this curriculum for today:

We’ve provided a group of educational resources below. We’ve listed them in an order that we hope will build on your understanding of concussions as you go through them.

  1. Read this section from CATT: Overview: What is a concussion? Read all four sections: Recognize, Respond, Manage, Prevent.

    1. Also, read the Medical Professional Overview. How does this resource differ from the general overview in language? What about areas of focus?

  2. Watch this great video on why helmets don’t prevent concussions

 
 

3. Chris Giza, MD, gives a superb presentation at the 2019 Concussion Summit. Dr. Giza is the Director of the Steve Tisch BrainSPORT Program at UCLA. Dr. Giza also helps Concussion Alliance with referrals for patients we consult with.

Don’t worry about feeling comfortable with all of these topics right away, Dr. Giza goes through a lot in this video. We think that it provides an interesting overview of the complexities of the injury that can make it so difficult to treat.

This video features:

  • A fantastic explanation of the neurometabolic cascade pathology of concussion, a well-accepted theory that Dr. Giza developed

  • Male / female difference in concussions

  • Blood biomarkers

  • Rest vs. Aerobic exercise in recovery

  • Neurodegeneration and CTE

  • Evaluating research

  • Persistent post-concussion symptoms

4. Also from Dr. Giza, watch this great explanation of the neurometabolic cascade. From the University of Calgary MOOC: Dr. Chris Giza on the biology of Concussion

5. Listen to “This is What a Concussion Sounds Like,” a 6-minute radio story from Seattle NPR member station KUOW hosted on our personal stories page

Remote Work/Team Building

Watch these videos on remote work environments. I know you all have had plenty of experience working remotely over the last year, but these (very short) videos should be helpful in generating some intentionality with regard to building community in our remote environment (these videos should take no more than 10-15 minutes).

Science Writing