Jonathan Webb opens the inaugural Fortius International Sports Injury Conference, 2015 (FISIC ’15)

October 2015 saw the first sports injury conference held by Fortius Clinic. FISIC ’15 was a multi-disciplinary conference on the theme of sports injury. Timed to coincide with the Rugby World Cup and supported by World Rugby, the content was focused on rugby but had wider relevance, applying lessons learned in a range of sports to current rugby issues.

With his background as an international rugby player, Jonathan Webb opened the conference alongside Brett Gosper, CEO of World Rugby. They covered the evolution of sports medicine alongside the changing face of Rugby Union. The expertise and dedicated treatment facilities available for all athletes have improved beyond recognition in the last 20 years.

In the audience were 650 medical professionals with an interest in sports injury, there to learn from leaders in the field. The conference was aimed at orthopaedic surgeons, physiotherapists and sports and exercise medicine professions, as well as GPs for whom there was a separate programme in musculoskeletal injuries. The  programmes had a broad appeal, and specifically included the opportunity to debate controversial issues. Blogs from each session can be found on the Fortius website (click here).

In the opening session there was an interview between Jonathan and Will Greenwood, former international rugby player.  Will contrasted his experience  of recovering from injury whilst a professional rugby player with a more recent injury, sustained after he’d retired from competitive-level sport and had a ‘normal’ day job and family commitments to consider.

As well as rugby-relevant subjects, the varied programme covered a wide range of topics, including joint specific sessions with more technical content, overviews of more specialist areas such as disability sport or the adolescent athlete, presentations of the latest science on muscle injuries & repair, bone health and cell therapies, and debates on the merits of PRP injections.

The conference was very well received and heralded a biennial series of conferences held by Fortius Clinic, with the next one in 2017.