Key points from today’s guests:

Chris Long, owner and co-founder, Kansas City Current

• We're so excited to partner with the University of Kansas Health System as our official health care provider.
• We're so proud to make this announcement and be able to associate with such a world class organization.
• What makes it special to have this partnership between the KC Current and The University of Kansas Health System is our values align, and we very much put values at the core of every decision for strategic partnerships.
• Player care is everything. It's at the core of every decision and one thing we know is that the Health System is going to be an incredible partner as we make sure that every player can perform at the best of their ability.
• I truly believe it's a massive moment in women's sports as these two organizations get to be partners.

Angie Long, owner and co-founder, Kansas City Current

• We're also very excited about the female athlete project that the health system is spearheading. And in our sport, this is a big deal for female athletes of all ages, everywhere.
• Half of youth athletes are female, and there's so much more that needs to be done in studying all of the different ways that female athletes are different.

Tammy Peterman, president, Kansas City division, The University of Kansas Health System

• We've been a leader in sports medicine for a very long time. Our health system has been in sports medicine for many years.
• I think there is such a unique need for the female athlete and I love the fact that we developed a female athlete program.
• There are unique needs of the female athlete we know that we have to treat certain diseases and certain injuries and other conditions differently in the female and we need to make sure that we have a team that can do that. We have experts who do that every single day.
• We're certainly excited about this partnership with the KC current. This is there a strong organization coming together with our strong organization. We're going to do great things together.

Bob Page, president and CEO, The University of Kansas Health System

• We couldn't be more excited about this partnership and what we're going to be able to do together. This is a big day for Kansas City.
• We've been taking care of professional athletes since the year 2000 and we have the entire infrastructure built here for athlete care.
• We're going to be able to provide the Kansas City Current with that entire 20 plus years of experience to take care of their athletes.

Focus Topic – Sports Medicine for Women

Dr. Lisa Vopat, sports medicine specialist, The University of Kansas Health System

• Females are largely underrepresented in the science that drive our protocols. So when it comes to our sports medicine protocols, females represent only about 39 percent of participants in our research studies.
• If you look at some of the data behind the nutrition recommendations, they are limited with female representation. For example, they just did an audit looking at what should athletes be doing in terms of their carbohydrate intake. Females were only 11 percent of the participant pool.
• What we're doing is we're taking things that have been largely studied on men and applying them to females. And sometimes that's the best information that we have. But we're doing female athletes a disservice unless we look into that further.
• Historically speaking, females have not been encouraged to get into the weight room. And we know that women and females just need to lift and they need a place that they feel confident and able to learn to do that with their unique biomechanics, anatomy and physiology in mind.
• That was sort of the goal of this female athlete program to offer a dedicated place for them. When it comes to strength and conditioning, it’s a place where females feel comfortable coming into.
• There are many expectations that are placed on the female athlete, and that can be expectations from society and culture in what a female athlete is supposed to look like or is supposed to be. It can be expectations put on them by a coach, or other players or family members.
• We do a lot of managing expectations in figuring out how to hone their true goals and their self-identity and then giving them a lot of good coping tools to deal with those expectations.

Dr. Paul Schroeppel, sports medicine specialist, The University of Kansas Health System

• I think when we've looked back the research, there's a lot of sports medicine research that really just haven't reported or haven't really analyzed the differences between male and female athletes.
• We've really highlighted that disparity and I think we've really pushed to make sure, as a sports medicine community, but particularly in our department, we really push to make sure that's on the forefront. We're really trying to gain as much information about those differences.
• What we do know is that there are many differences, including anatomy, physiology, nutrition, psychology, sociology, and more.
• We have to see the differences to give a good multidisciplinary team to these female athletes to give them the optimal care they deserve.
• We’ve understood more recently how important mental health is to overall wellness. I think that's really also been highlighted in athletics and sports participation. And that can be dealing with adversity with a specific injury and in the type of rehab and return to play -- a fear of re-injury or a fear of being able to return to previous level or better.

COVID Update

Dr. Dana Hawkinson, director of infection & prevention control, The University of Kansas Health System

• The hospital is at 17 active COVID infections, which is down from 24 last week,
• This newest study in Scientific Reports was a meta-analysis that took some of those other previous studies and tried to combine all of that information.
• What it showed was that those people that got the influenza vaccine versus the people that did not, there was a benefit for the people that got the influenza vaccine in the next nine months with reduced heart attack and reduced cardiovascular death.
• That is one more benefit and proof that shows that getting the influenza vaccine is safe, and also can have other beneficial effects as well.

Wednesday, Nov. 29 at 8 a.m. is the next Morning Medical Update. Bacteria and other microbes are adapting to resist antibiotics, but what's actually being done to slow down one of the biggest threats to public health? U.S. Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas joins to reveal what’s being done at the Federal level.

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