Musculoskeletal examination: A masterclass

Cath qualified in 1995 and trained in Sports Medicine at Bath University. She has worked with an extensive range of different sports people, ranging from Paralympians and Olympians and to the occasional exerciser. She was a Sports Physician at the 2012 Olympic Games, the 2002 Commenwealth Games, and has worked with GB rowing, track and field sports, marathon, endurance and outdoor adventure sports men and women. She developed an MSc Programme at Bangor University, and is a keen lecturer.

Cath specialised in the diagnosis and treatment of all musculoskeletal conditions, whether acquired through sport or otherwise. She has expertise in getting to the bottom of persistent problems, such as ankle and shoulder injuries. She has a particular interest in the diagnosis of hip and groin problems, including femoroactetabular impingement, and has guided the recovery of over 2,000 patients undergoing hip arthroscopy.

Cath’s approach is biomedically and functionally focused. She is passionate about helping patients to get back to doing what’s important to them. She works closely with those involved, to help patients rehabilitate and gain new resilience.

Doug is a consultant hand and wrist surgeon in Leeds, UK. He qualified from the University of Dundee in 1986, completed fellowships in hand surgery in Oxford and Boston, Massachusetts, and was appointed to my current post in 1998. He completed a 2 year Master of Surgery degree (ChM) in 2000 and published my thesis on the late effects of hand injury.

He provides a specialist clinical service in the areas of injury reconstruction, sports related problems, and complex conditions of the wrist and hand. His contribution to sports medicine was recognised in 2009 by the award of a Foundation Fellowship of the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine.

He has been performing surgical procedures on the hand and wrist since the early 1990’s and undertake over 500 procedures each year.

He has been the chairman of the AO Foundation’s Hand Expert Group since 2005. This is an international group of hand surgeons, scientists, developers and statisticians who design, evaluate and introduce innovative surgical products to manage traumatic injuries of the hand and wrist.

He has been a visiting orthopaedic professor in Australia, Singapore, South Africa, Hong Kong and also to the Royal Society of Medicine, as well as a visiting lecturer to the American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH) and the Belgian Hand Surgery Society. He has chaired courses in Switzerland, Holland, South Africa, Dubai and at the Instructional Course of the ASSH.

He has a established and specialist sports medicine and performance practice in hand and wrist problems, being a member of the medical advisory board of the European PGA Tour as well as acting as specialist medical adviser to Olympic associations, professional soccer clubs, the Scottish Rugby Union, Premiership Rugby Union clubs, international cricket teams, UK Diving, UK Gymnastics and GB Judo. He is also a consultant to the Northern Ballet Theatre and regularly treats professional musicians, both classical and contemporary.

Brinda obtained an intercalated Sports Science Degree from Loughborough University in 2006 and qualified from University College Medical School in 2007. She undertook general medical training at London University-affiliated teaching hospitals and then specialist trained in Sports and Exercise Medicine at Charing Cross Hospital, St Mary’s Hospital, Hammersmith Hospital and Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre Headley Court.

Shortly after qualifying as a Sports and Exercise Medicine Consultant and becoming a Fellow at the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine she was appointed President of the Royal Society of Medicine Sports and Exercise Medicine Section. During that year she also undertook a Fellowship at Stanford University where she worked closely with the Stanford 25 group. She taught undergraduates and Stanford Physicians on clinical musculoskeletal examination and medicine and continues to contribute to the group as a Faculty Member of the Annual Stanford 25 Symposium.

Brinda returned from Stanford to work at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club as the Academy Doctor, later crossing over to include care of the 1st Team. She has been closely involved from the inception of SVEXA a Silicon Valley based, multidisciplinary lead sports science data analytics start-up, where the aim is to better utilize individual sports data to optimize performance and recovery for elite athletes, with a view to offer these services to individuals once robust sport-specific algorithms have been established.

Brinda’s main sport interest to date has been in football medicine. She started at Wimbledon AFC, later moved to Norwich FC, and then Tottenham Hotspur FC. She has also worked for: women’s teams such as England’s Women’s Football and Tottenham Hotspur Ladies; disabled sports such as NEC Championship Disabled International Tennis and GB Disabled Shooting; and adolescent sport medicine when working for UK Athletics Junior Championships, Sainsbury’s School Games, and for the Football Academy at Spurs.

Brinda passionately advocates Exercise Medicine and has lead a working group for the Department of Health and Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine on exercise medicine prescription for chronic diseases, which has resulted in a web based prescription tool ‘Moving Medicine’.

Brinda currently works as a Regional Rehabilitation Unit Doctor for the MOD in Colchester and overseas diagnosis and rehabilitation to injured Army, Navy and RAF personnel, including elite members of The Parachute Regiment. She works within a multidisciplinary team which includes Exercise Rehabilitation Instructors, Physiotherapists, and General Medical Officers to ensure optimal outcomes for musculoskeletal injures, which can range from those sustained during operational deployment to elite level sport.