David Bradley Sports Medicine & Rehabilitation Centre transition to provide a hybrid model of patient care under the current government restrictions
Graphic by Esra Rakab
We have reached the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario. In March 2020, the Ontario provincial government issued a state of emergency, ordering several businesses to close down. This included the David Braley Sport Medicine and Rehabilitation Centre, managed by Gloria Kiefer Preston, where she oversaw the functions of the centre while adjusting operations due to the pandemic.
It was not until July 2020 when the clinic was allowed to re-open, while adhering to social distancing guidelines and health and safety measures implemented by authorities. Despite re-opening, there were still restrictions on surgeries, both outpatient and elective.
Preston also noticed a rapid decline in patient registration, leading to decreased operating hours and fewer staff members. Even with fewer patients, appointment slots were still spread out to allow for further sanitation of the clinic spaces.
As instructed, staff and health practitioners have conducted screening required by authorities, alongside wearing adequate personal protective equipment and documenting all visitors.
“Physiotherapists have done a fantastic job at accommodating and have been doing more than [okay],” said Preston.
“Physiotherapists have done a fantastic job at accommodating and have been doing more than [okay],”
Gloria Kiefer Preston
Now, as the clinic reduced their operating hours, they have adopted an unconventional method of patient check-ups: telemedicine. As telemedicine is not as prominent in sports, due to the frequency of hands-on assessments, closures due to the pandemic have enabled practitioners with consultations to guide patients to online resources and give medical advice over the phone.
The clinic’s experiential education program — a mandatory component of medical training in a variety of healthcare specialties — had to undergo closures and changes in their operation guidelines, such that the number of student placements had to be reduced. As in-person learning was temporarily put on hold, the transition to online clinical education became a learning curve, adapting to the use of technology for placements for medical residents and physiotherapy students.
Undergraduate kinesiology students were also severely affected, as when the city of Hamilton went into the grey level of lockdown, student therapy placements were not allowed on site until the lockdown level was lifted to red. Student placements predominantly assisted with the screening of athletes.
As part of the clinic’s volunteer program, they transitioned it to online learning but were still able to enroll 75 students. These students had to complete online modules and submit project-based work, such as looking at case studies.
As the government is still aiming to reduce its daily COVID-19 cases and continues with its vaccine rollout program, people are slowly returning to their normal lives with freer schedules as the lockdown has been lifted in their regions.
The clinic’s schedule is now becoming more booked. With that being said, while Preston emphasized there’s still a sense of difficulty in the air, the clinic still aims to continue a hybrid model of patient care and synchronous learning of on-site and online education.
“There was never a “Pandemic 101” course on how to get through a pandemic and it forced us to take a step back and appreciate things,” said Preston.
“There was never a “Pandemic 101” course on how to get through a pandemic and it forced us to take a step back and appreciate things,”
GLORIA KIEFER PRESTON
As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads around the world, decisive and necessary measures have been taken to slow the spread of the virus. On March 23, the Ontario government announced that all non-essential services would be required to close for two weeks. These closures, while necessary, will have major impacts on all sectors of society. The current pandemic is effecting operations for our various sports teams due to closures of facilities and team operations. As precautions being taken against COVID-19 increase and uncertainty about the future remains, McMaster Athletics must be prepared for a long road ahead.
Let’s begin with recruiting. Naturally, recruiting revolves around one-on-one and in-person contact with the athletes, and often involves coaches watching athletes competing. With school closures expected to last much longer than anticipated, many high school athletics teams will not see the end of their seasons.
These closures would mean that crucial areas of competition, such as city championships, provincials and nationals, will no longer take place in sports such as rugby. Therefore, the previously available opportunities for varsity coaches to base recruiting decisions on are no longer an option.
Stefan Ptaszek, the head coach of McMaster Football, remarked that while many of the main talents have already been scouted for next year’s team, large high school level tournaments can give many players the opportunity to step up and get noticed by scouts. The playoffs often see several players step up on their roster and perform at a higher level. For some, these opportunities have unfortunately been lost, and with them, chances for scholarships.
The moments in the postseason when an athlete’s performance counts the most could be among the deciding factors for a player making it to the collegiate level. With regard to scholarships, for some students such deciding factors could have been the difference between attending university or not.
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This was further acknowledged by Daniel Pletch, the head coach for the men’s rugby team at McMaster. He agreed with Ptsazek’s concerns that obstacles to recruitment could affect an entire incoming class of students.
“The real challenge will be the 2021 recruits, as it’s looking unlikely we’ll have a spring high school rugby season. This means identifying the top high school players will be a bigger challenge, especially finding those ‘late bloomers’, who pick up the sport later in high school, and really rely on their grade 12 seasons to develop,” Pletch said.
According to Ptaszek, around 30-50 students per year receive scholarships for their efforts on the football team, which is roughly a third or more of the entire team. It’s clear that scholarships are an integral part of university athletics. The scholarships offered for being on the football team, for example, are held if the student retains a 6.5 GPA or higher. With the added stress and mental pressure the pandemic is putting on everyone, it is not inconceivable to think that this could affect athletes’ grades due to greater mental strain and less access to campus resources.
Official sports bodies have also taken a stance on recruitment. U Sports released a statement on March 16 declaring that it was putting a three week minimum moratorium on recruitment. This would not allow any travel, in-person visits or one-on-one contact with high school athletes, furthering the difficulty to create and harvest new relationships with budding student-athletes. With that being said, “non-contact” measures such as phone calls, video conferences and social media contact are allowed.
Both Pletch and Ptsazek also made remarks about another main area which will be greatly affected: physical conditioning. Due to city closures and the need to practice physical distancing, it is harder for athletes to access commercial gyms and university athletic facilities. For example, on March 16 the McMaster Pulse announced it was shutting its doors for several weeks and that all athletics services in the David Braley Athletic Centre were also shutting down. Athletes who cannot afford outside facilities or personal equipment may find it harder to remain in shape for the season.
While public health guidelines must be adhered to in order to reduce the risk of harm as much as possible, the closure of sports, schools and athletics facilities has the potential to deeply affect the lives of student-athletes everywhere.
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At every McMaster home game there are two groups of people: the athletes and the fans. Both are deeply engaged in the evening’s proceedings. Students wearing maroon both on and off the court carry a passion for the game and a love of intense competition. For varsity sports, most students would say they fall into the second category, happy to cheer for a spirited dunk but not quite able to jump in and do it themselves.
But what if students were only able to be spectators?
Such was the experience of fourth-year student Julia Haines. As anyone who has visited the David Braley Athletic Centre can attest to, the campus athletic centre is always bustling with student activity. So when she began her first year at McMaster, Haines, like anyone else, was excited to join some weekend intramural teams and work out in the campus gym.
She would not be so lucky. At the time the only accessible athletic programming at Mac was a one-day wheelchair handball tournament, that had faced dwindling enthusiasm in recent years.
The Pulse, the gym facility on campus, also posed challenges as without an internal elevator Haines required 20 minutes of staff assistance just to reach the cardio equipment on the second floor.
Over 7,500 members of the McMaster community participate in over 35 intramural sports leagues every year, with even more students visiting DBAC facilities like the Pulse regularly. Why couldn’t she?
“I ended up quitting,” said Haines. “It was just so frustrating. I had other ways of being active [in the community], but this summer it really started to bother me. It doesn’t take that much to have accessible [options]… and there are benefits to everyone.”
The Pulse also posed challenges as without an internal elevator Haines required 20 minutes of staff assistance just to reach the cardio equipment on the second floor.
A stroke survivor since her final year of high school, Haines was no stranger to adversity. So she decided to apply some of the same perseverance that had taken her to provincial swimming championships and local soccer titles into making a case for more accessible sports.
A few emails later, and she had a meeting with the Director of Athletics and Recreation Glen Grunwald and the director of intramurals Andrew Pettit. Responsive from the get-go, they were ready to change the way McMaster welcomes all students into the sport community.
“[Through my experience] I really started to understand the impact parasports and accessible opportunities have on people,” said Haines. “Sports have a number of benefits, we see it in [research], we hear people say it, it gives you an outlet for stress… all wonderful things. But what we don’t always realize is that sport can have that same impact for people with disabilities as well… that’s what I wanted [for Mac]”
They decided to start with a small sitting volleyball league that would run on Sunday afternoons and not require any special equipment. Today, the eight-team league is over capacity and had to move to a prime-time Monday time slot to accommodate all of the interest.
“Every Monday night Sport Hall is filled with people playing sitting volleyball,” said Haines. “Our team has four people with disabilities on it, and when I was watching them and and hearing how much fun they were having and how much they were looking forward to next week… I was ready to sit there and [cry].”
Other new initiatives include a revival of the age-old sitting hand-ball tournament and two sport wheelchairs for anyone at Mac to rent out and use whenever the gym is available.
“Almost every time I go into the gym someone is either using them or sitting on them or asking about them and it is absolutely awesome,” said Haines.
While the changes in accessible programming are certainly welcome, they are only the start when it comes to truly changing the athletics landscape at a university-wide level. Haines envisions a school where paraathletes can not only play on intramural teams, but can complete at the varsity level, no longer delegated to the spectator section because of personal circumstance.
“People with disabilities are people who have happened to live through difficult circumstances that they wear on their bodies,” said Haines. “Everyone has challenges, people with disabilities just happen to wear their challenges on them.”
Haines also encourages everyone to takes steps to actively change how inclusive their own activities are. Whether that is as simple as holding a hockey tournament in an accessible arena, or reaching out to have a conversation about what other steps might be helpful, every action can be the difference between storming the court and sitting in the bleachers.
“I know how it feels to be excluded,” said Haines. “I know how it feels to walk or roll past people in the gym playing everyday and knowing that you just can’t… and that you will never be a part of that. So to see people have the opportunity to be with their friends, have fun and exercise their right to participate… it’s overwhelming… it’s everything.”
“GLEN GRUNWALD?!” is the exact text I received from a handful of people when they heard the news.
Initially reported by Ted Michaels at CHML 900 and Scott Radley at The Hamilton Spectator, Glen Grunwald, former Toronto Raptors and New York Knicks general manager, will be McMaster University’s new Athletic Director. The University made the announcement official on Thursday morning.
In terms of newsworthiness, this story trumps any CIS announcement in recent memory. Grunwald was working for one of the largest sports brands in the world in the Knicks at the start of the previous school year, but come September he’ll be in an office at the David Braley Athletic Centre.
A former NBA front office executive’s mere acknowledgment of the CIS’s existence is a good thing, but for him to take helm of a program elevates the story. People who would otherwise never care about the hiring of an athletic director are paying attention.
But it will be interesting to hear about why Grunwald took the job and, although it will be littered with corporate buzzwords, the details of his role could offer insight into the future of the role of athletic directors in Canadian university athletics. Grunwald has no immediately known affiliation with the CIS prior to the hire – he attended Indiana University for his undergrad and MBA, while going to Northwestern for law school. He then became a Canadian citizen in 1999, five years after he was brought on to work for the Raptors. Grunwald was previously on the Board of Directors at Canada Basketball.
The person who used to hold the role, Jeff Giles, told the Spectator that the majority of his work was to secure funding – either from corporate partners or out of the pockets of alumni.
Putting someone with a recognizable name in charge could help do that, and Mac could use the money. The 13th man campaign launched by the athletic department has not gotten the cash influx that was required, and the school will need to lock down more money if it wants to maintain its status as one of the strongest athletic programs in the country.
It is easy to see the name and, as McMaster students and alumni, pat ourselves on the back for being apart of the headline-grabbing move, but until we hear some tangible and concrete plans, I would refrain from popping bottles in the name of Grunwald. There’s still a ton of work to be done before we know if the splashy hire will bear any championship-winning fruit.
There is no reason to be anything but optimistic about the move. It is a big name coming to an already strong department, and members of the McMaster community should be thrilled with the choice. This will raise the program up, but the question is: how high?
Sophia Topper
Staff Reporter
McMaster has countless faith-based clubs and organizations, but they lack a place to interact. For years, the creation of a multi-faith centre has been in the works, but these plans have not come to fruition.
“It gets talked about, but it doesn’t seem to happen,” said Reverend Carol Wood, a McMaster Chaplain. “Every group has to support their own religious advisor."
“For a long time I’ve been interested in interfaith dialogue,” said Wood, an Ecumenical Chaplain. She has worked to create the Daughters of Abraham program, a group of Jewish, Muslim and Christian women.
The program arose from “some major tensions in years past...We worked to create some dialogue sessions to speak to some conflict areas,” explained Rev. Wood.
However, this still excludes men and those of other faiths from the discussion.
Rev. Wood looks towards the University of Toronto multi-faith centre as an example of the possibilities such a place could yield. The centre boasts a meditation space with a living green wall, a prayer space for 200 and a smoke detection system that can be altered to allow for traditional smudge ceremonies to occur.
However, explained Rev. Wood, the muli-faith centre at U of T was a “year in the procurement and implementation.”
“[Although] two proposals went out, and the [David Braley Athletic Centre] wanted to create an open space that would be a place for people to practice as well as a space for programming, and some unprogrammed times… a bit more money [was needed] than what was available,” said Rev. Wood.
Such space would “allow people to mix and interact, which I think is pretty important,” Wood said.
Dr. Liyakat Takim, Sharjah Chair in Global Islam said, “I think that’s a very important idea… we live in a multi-faith society, and that demands multi-faith gatherings.”
“It still won’t accommodate every single interfaith need…at least it’s a start,” said Rev. Wood.
While groups involved in the development of a multi-faith centre see its value, some students are not as keen on the idea.
One such student, Emily Wilson, said, “I think that different religions are really interesting, but I don’t think I would utilize a multi-faith centre, and I don’t think many people would.”
First-year Arts and Science student Liana Glass said, “I don’t think that people would go to things that are for a faith other than their own, except for people who are objectively interested in religion and not there for spiritual purposes.”
