21/03/2011

Letter to the IF Medical Chairs

An important initiative of the Interfederal Commission addressed to the International Federations Medical Commissions.

After having collected information through a pilot study carried out in 13 IFs in 2010, FIMS decided to launch a project run by the FIMS Interfederal Commission chaired by Dr. Katharina Grimm to strengthen the position of sports physicians within the IFs,  providing a platform for sharing experiences and facilitating their daily work by practical advice and information.

Lausanne, 21 March 2011

To the Medical Chairpersons of the ISFs

Dear Colleagues

During recent years, anti-doping matters have become a primary concern of international sports federations (ISFs), often, particularly in financially less strong ISFs, consuming the financial and staff resources for medical issues. As a result, the health of the athlete, prevention and education in sports medicine have been neglected or even sacrified to anti-doping. A FIMS survey among 13 ISFs in spring 2010 showed that the status of medicine is generally low and possibilities to influence the decision making of ISFs is limited.

The FIMS Interfederal Commission would like to help rectifying this drawback and alert to the importance of medicine whenever an ISF intends to act responsibly and anticipatively in the interest of their athletes and their sport.

We want to:

  • strengthen the position of the physician in ISFs and give him a voice;
  • provide a platform for sharing experiences;
  • facilitate his daily work by practical advice and information.

Obviously, in order to achieve this, we need to firstly learn if you are actually interested in such assistance and, secondly, what exactly you would expect in this regard. The latter includes learning about the challenges you face, the concerns you have that require support, be it either by information, education or advocacy, and any services that would help to fulfill your function more efficiently and effectively.

We would therefore ask you to please kindly complete the following questionnaire and send it back to us by email

Thank you kindly for your collaboration!
 

Yours faithfully

 

Prof. Fabio Pigozzi,

FIMS President      

 

Dr Katharina Grimm,

Chair Interfederal Commission