Speakers

Professor Lars Engebretsen

“Are our treatment methods in orthopaedics and sports traumatology evidence based?”

Asics Sponsored Speaker

Lars travel to Australia is supported by Club Warehouse Sports Medical

Lars Engebretson completed his Medical Doctorate in 1979 at the University of Oslo. In 1990 he received his PhD in Orthopaedic Surgery from Trondheim University and in 1992 was credentialed in Norway as a Certified Specialist in orthopaedics and general surgery.

Lars is Professor, Orthopaedic Center, Ullevål University Hospital and Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo. Lars’ current professional affiliations include Professor of the Norwegian College of Sports and Physical Education and the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Norway, Co-chair of Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center. He is Consultant and chief of sports medicine at the Norwegian Olympic Sports Federation Olympic Committee and Para-Olympic Committee, Head Physician for the Norwegian Olympic Center and Head of Medical Sciences, International Olympic Committee (IOC). He was the Chief Physician for the Norwegian Olympic Team for Athens 2004, Torino 2006 and for the Norwegian Olympic Training Center.

Lars has published over 400 articles, book chapters and abstracts. He has received research grants and awards from many agencies and associations, including the National Institutes of Health, the Norwegian Council for Research in Science and humanities, the Norwegian Ministry of Health and AOSSM.

In addition to being the current President of ESSKA, Lars is also a member of many other societies including but not limited to the Norwegian Society of Sports Medicine, the Scandinavian Foundation of Medicine & Science in Sports, ISAKOS, the Orthopaedic Research Society and International Knee Society.

Refshauge Lecturer

Professor Peter Fricker OAM

“Genetics and the athlete – metaphysics, science and ethics (Part 1)”

Australian Sports Medicine Federation Fellows Sponsored Speaker

Director of the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS)

Professor Fricker is well known for his significant role as team doctor and medical director of Australian teams at five Olympic Games and six Commonwealth Games. He was appointed AIS Director in 2005.

He is Chairman of the Medical Commission of the Australian Commonwealth Games Association and a Member of the Medical Commission of the Australian Olympic Committee, and was Medical Director for the Teams to Manchester and for the Australian Team to the Athens Olympics.

Peter worked as Team Medical Officer to Australian National Junior Mens Basketball Teams to two World Championships ans was Team Medical Officer to National Gymnastics Teams to World Championships.

For over 25 years, Professor Fricker has conducted groundbreaking work in key areas of sports science and sports medicine, including sports injuries, exercise and immunology, and genetics in sport. He has focused on research that supports and enhances the performance and success of Australian athletes and teams.

Official commendations include a medal of the Order of Australia (1993) and the Australian Sports Medal (2001).

Professor Bengt Saltin

“Exercise science; its role today and through a century.”

Asics Sponsored Speaker

Professor Bengt Saltin is currently the Director of the Muscle Research Center at the University of Copenhagen.

Bengt has devoted his life to researching the effects of physical exercise on health and performance. He coined the term ‘humans were meant to move’ and his famous ‘bed rest’ study transformed medical practice on how people recover from heart attacks, general surgery, or injury. Over the years he has conducted extensive research into skeletal muscle function and training, cardiac function in athletes and patients, high level elite performance, gene-environment interactions and performance enhancing drugs. His current work focuses on exercise and diabetes. He is one of the world’s most respected exercise physiologists and in 2002, he was awarded the IOC Prize, an Olympic Gold Medal, for having made the greatest contribution to our understanding of exercise for health and performance.

Dr Murray Phillips

“Reflections on the Past: Appraising the developments of Sport Medicine and Sport Science in Australia”

Senior Lecturer in Socio-Cultural Aspects of Sport and Physical Activity, The University of Queensland

Dr Phillips has a range of research interests in the historical and contemporary dimensions of sport. He has written on the historical and contemporary aspects of sport and war, sport and gender, sports’ coaching, golf, rugby league, rugby union, sport structures as well as the ontological, epistemological and methodological aspects of sport history.

With these interests in mind, Dr Phillips has received external funding from the Australian Research Council, Australian Sports Commission, the Australian Coaching Council, the Australian War Memorial, as well as internal funding from the Universities of Canberra, South Australia and Queensland. He was commissioned by the Women and Sport Unit at the Australian Sports Commission to write An Illusory Image: A Report on the Media Coverage and Portrayal of Women’s Sport in Australia 1996, has written a history of coaching in Australia entitled From Sidelines to Centre Field for the Australian Coaching Council, and is currently writing the centennial history of swimming in Australia for the National Sporting Organisation, Australian Swimming. In addition, Dr Phillips has been contracted to edit a book on the ontological, epistemological and methodological dimensions of sport history that draws on the collective experience of twelve of the leading sport historians around the world.

Dr Phillips has been an associate editor and book reviews editor for the Journal of Football Studies and is also on the executive committee of the Australian Society for Sport Historians and is the book reviews editor for the national journal, Sporting Traditions.

Dr John Garvey

“Sports hernia – what is it and what can be done?“

General and Diagnostic Surgeon, Groin Pain Clinic, Sydney

Dr John Garvey is a General Surgeon who graduated from the University of New South Wales and undertook Surgical Fellowship Training at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney.  His basic research was conducted in the Nuffield Department of Surgery in Oxford under the supervision of Professor Sir Peter Morris.

John became interested in groin injury in 1990, whilst working with Sports Physician, Dr Hugh Hazard at NRL Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs and pioneered the operation of groin reconstruction when he performed the first repair in 1995.  Since that time he has accumulated over 1500 cases comprising both sports people and injured workers and has presented his work in London, Arizona, Singapore, Beijing and Berlin with his next major presentation to be at the European Hernia Society in Istanbul later this year.  He shot to prominence after his name was linked to several international sportsmen in all football codes and he has published a recent article in Europe.

Dr Evert Verhagen

“The cost of sports injuries”

Senior Researcher, Department of Public and Occupational Health, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam

Evert Verhagen, PhD (1976) is a senior researcher of the department of Public and Occupational Health at the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam. He is a board certified occupational epidemiologist and human movement scientist. Evert received his PhD in 2004 after emphasising the preventive effect balance training has against ankle sprains. As a former Track & Field athlete who had to cease participating at the elite level on the age of 17 due to an injury, he has a natural interest in sports and physical activity injury prevention. He gained his mark for his work on the prevention of ankle sprains, but also has a strong focus on safety and injury prevention in youth sports and physical activity, as well as the uptake of the interventions within a broad sporting population.

Evert was the project-leader of the recently completed the 2BFit (Balance Board Functional instability training) study on the preventive effect of proprioceptive training given after usual care. Results of this very effective intervention have been accepted for publication in the British Medical Journal. He is also the instigator of the effective iPlay study (Injury Prevention Lessons Affecting Youngsters). The iPlay study evaluated a school-based intervention program aimed at preventing sports and physical activity injuries in children aged 10-12. Evert is a also current member of various Dutch ‘expert’ groups within the field of sports medicine, including the ‘projectgroup National Sports Database’, ‘the National Sports Injury Registration Platform’, and ‘the National Sports Injury Prevention Platform’.