Legal Actions Expose Further Risks For Sport ...

Chip Le Grand reports in "The Australian" on 5th April 2001 that the AFL has begun grappling with what constitutes informed consent between a doctor and a player.  Australian Medical Association spokesman Dr Peter Larkins said the issue of informed consent is a vexed one for players and officials alike.  In general terms, informed consent is when a patient agrees to a treatment after having understood all his or her treatment options and the potential side-effects.

The report states that Dr Larkins said this was simply not possible during a game when doctors were making diagnoses and subscribing treatments form the interchange bench of Colonial Stadium or the MCG rooms.  A former club doctor for 13 years at Geelong and Adelaide and vice-president of the Australian College of Sports Physicians, Dr Larkins said club doctors regularly felt compromised on matchdays by pressure from players, coaches, the match committee and sometimes even their loyalty to the club.  "It is not realistic for a player and a doctor to have a comprehensive discussion in the heat of the battle," he said.  "If you had to explain every potential side-effect or risk to every player every time he did something, no one would ever play."

Dr Larkins said that there was a need for a general agreement prior to the season where in certain situations players would defer to the doctor's judgement.  Currently there are no guidelines for medical practices in Australian Football.

"There have to be broad-brush guidelines," Dr Larkins said.  "It is critical they exist."

AFL Players' Association chief executive Rob Kerr is confident that by next year there will be a code of practice governing doctors at every AFL club and standardised medical examinations for every player at the end of every season.  Players would also receive a final medical at the end of their career.

Dr Larkins described the Whitehead action as a "huge case" within the sports medicine community.

Note: All references to the Whitehead action come from an article by reporter Chip Le Grand appearing in "The Australian" on Thursday 5th April 2001.

Written by Rod Hughes - Joint Chief Executive Officer 

IEA Sport 

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The editor of the IEA Sport Monthly Update is  joint Chief Executive Officer, Rod Hughes.

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