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A week with Tommy stepping in as "Head of Medical" at Bristol Bears Ladies' Team

A week with Tommy stepping in as "Head of Medical" at Bristol Bears Ladies' Team

Tommy Jermyn · 4 minute read

Tommy shares the details from his week of stepping in as "Head of Medical" for Bristol Bears Women’s Team

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Tommy Jermyn, our fantastic Sports Therapist here at The Hanham Clinic shares his experience of heading up the medical department at Bristol Bear Women’s Rugby thorugh August. Tommy works for the Bristol Bears Women's Team as a Sports Therapist, but had a great opportunity to impress whilst filling in the boots of their head Physiotherapist. Read all about his experience here.

My exciting week filling in as Head of the Medical Department(HOD):

Filling in as the head of medical department (HOD) at Bristol Bears Women’s rugby this August was an incredibly insightful and high pressured, but thrilling task. As a Sports Therapist it gave me a real insight into one of the end goals of my career- of being in charge of a team, one for which I’m grateful for and has continued to ignite my desire to work towards that progressing my career.

My usual role as a sports therapist at the club for the most of it remained unchanged. I was still carrying injury assessments, writing and coaching rehab programmes, creating and supervising return to play drills and performing general pitch side responsibilities.

Image of rugby posts within a sports stadium

Managing "return to play" of professional rugby players

The way my role increased came largely through taking an increased responsibility over the players; I was having to make those big decisions on whether a player could train, or on what they could and couldn’t do within a particular session. This on the outset doesn’t sound like a much, but the consequences could be large. In general, it is important for the coaches to have as many players available as possible- as each session is laid out meticulously before hand. Taking a player out for just one session, and especially one in a position such as the front-row, can result in a sometimes a whole different session sometimes- so there is that pressure to manage. Then the larger risks and ramifications are potentially increasing the severity of a players’ injury; this is something that also transfers into my day to day practice as a sports therapist treating clients in Hanham. Releasing players back to train too early could cause more damage or even a complete re-injury, the fallout of which doesn’t need explaining. Despite this and as with most jobs, the best way to learn is by making (small!) mistakes, luckily of which I didn’t make but, every decision was a chance to learn from and develop myself as a better therapist than the training previous training session.

Teamwork at the heart of everything

Communication as the head of medical in a professional sporting environment is absolutely vital. My responsibilities included making accurate notes on when a player could return to the gym, then subsequently return to running and training- but then relaying that clearly to the player and coaches. As previously mentioned, the knock on effects of removing a player from training or playing situations is significant- and not one to be made lightly.

Working alongside the coaches...

Coaches also want to know exactly why a player can’t train and throughout my week as HOM, it was up to me to explain to them as clearly as I could, why they might be the case- but also providing the map of how they would return and to what but importantly, over what timescale. Much of the time this is met by frustration, which was another step up I had to undertake; controlling emotions and managing expectations; knowing when to be compassionate and kind -and when to be firm and clear to both players and coaches.,

Female Rugby player throwing a rugby ball to team-mates from overhead

My Role as a Sports Therapist at Bristol Bears Ladies' Team

Continuing in my usual role as a Sports Therapist for Bristol Bears Women’s Team, I continue my work within the high performance centre, seeing players regarding new injuries, old injuries or providing check ups before- providing different types of treatment and taping. This season I’ll be carrying out pitch side support during the first training session of the night, before going into the team meetings.

Following this we then move to pitch side again for the main training session before the end of the night. Working within a profession sporting environment is thoroughly enjoyable and something I’m proud of, and certainly help me develop my skills and expertise that I can bring into clinic each day. I’m now excited for league games to restart so we can go to pitch side again in front of large crowds- and watch our team that works so hard, have another fantastic season representing their City, Bristol.

Tommy Jermyn, Sports Therapist (BSc Hons)

Sports Therapy
Sports Therapist
The Hanham Clinic
Bristol
Chiropractic
Bristol Bears
Bristol Bears Women's Team
Professional Sports Team

Tommy Jermyn

Sports Therapist


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