For those of you who have not officially met us, my name is Diane King and I am the athletic trainer that is on site at South Forsyth High School. Our other full time person on the athletic training staff is Levi Wilson. We are employed by the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Sports Medicine program.
We have relationships with doctors at Emory and Peachtree Orthopedics as well as our team of doctors at Children’s Healthcare in the Collections (David Marshall and Cliff Willimon)
Often people think we teach at South or we are an employee of the county or that we even work for our team physician, but our services are provided to the teams through CHOA.
Our primary role is to help keep your kids safe and participating fully in sports. This includes providing them evaluation of injuries sustained during games, practice or other conditioning activities, or education for the athlete and parent regarding flexibility programs, nutrition recommendations, concussion education and of course hydration and heat issues. I even need to know when they have gotten hurt doing things outside of their primary sport since it will likely affect their ability to participate.
While we want them to remain injury free, injuries are going to happen. Coaches tell the kids each week they need to let us know they are hurt or hurting. We try to make sure everyone has declared their injury before they leave after practice. Sometimes things slip past us and a kid gets home, realizes the injury is more severe. Even if your sport practices off campus, we are still there to assist you. We can make arrangements to check your child out before they go to practice.
Whether it’s an injury we have tried to get better independently or we try to stay in communication with you along the way, once it is determined they need to see a doctor, here are a couple of things that will help us.
1. We need to know (as well as a coach) you are taking them to a doctor, especially if we have not yet seen them at school for the injury they have. Or, if you need help getting a “timely” appointment scheduled, let us know.
2. In fact, it is often helpful for you to list Diane King and Levi Wilson as a party that you can release information to when you see a doctor. That way if we have a question and need to follow up, they will be able to speak to me. This note is separate from the note turned into school. We keep a file in the office to document MD visits. That also means we need follow up notes when the child is released for a full return to sports.
3. If a doctor has limited your child’s participation due to an injury, we expect the child to follow those instructions and not try to sneak back into practice or drills because they feel okay. That’s why the written note is so necessary.
Please feel free to contact us anytime by phone or email. I have worked as an ATC for over 30 years, mainly at the high school level. I am also a registered dietitian which is why you see messages from me from time to time about hydration and fueling the athlete. Especially for the 9th grade athletes, this is a very significant period for growth and development and our goal is health and safety.
