Lockdown Story: Dr Natasha Beach
Faculty Member Dr Natasha Beach is a SEM consultant based in London who regularly works with elite sports teams and events. During the COVID 19 outbreak, she launched a successful online platform supporting therapists and other sports medicine professionals, while at the same time starting a new job and working in London A&E departments. Below, Dr Beach tells us her lockdown story:
We’d love to hear your lockdown story. To share yours, please contact us at enquries@fsem.ac.uk
In mid-March, I was working as CMO for the European Olympic Boxing Qualifiers in London. Three days into the competition, the decision was taken to suspend the event so that the athletes could get home before borders closed. Five days later, the UK entered lockdown.
Lockdown affected all aspects of my work. I am a Sports Doctor at Cranleigh School, which closed in March. We began holding consultations with parents and children remotely, via video calls and email. At this time, I also started working as a registrar in A&E departments at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and Charing Cross Hospital.
I run a company called SportsMedics, which provides medical cover for mass participation and international-level sporting events in the UK. Obviously, all this work was put on hold as events were postponed or cancelled. I wanted to help fellow sports medicine professionals maintain their profile during this period, so I set up the SportsMedics Clinic – an online platform sharing blogs and videos from therapists, rehab specialists and other sports medics, which built on our social media presence to help improve the individual’s visibility. I think we achieved those aims, with companies such as London Triathlon and Blenheim Triathlon using content from the Clinic in their own posts and articles.
I am the medical advisor for endurance events at UK Athletics, and during lockdown I took on a similar role for British Triathlon. I’ve been writing documents for both organisations on training during lockdown and planning for the return of sporting events. I have also been working with World Athletics and the WHO to produce international guidance on events, including the risk assessment tool for event planning.
I was also in the process of changing jobs when lockdown hit. I left Pure Sports Medicine in March, and was due to start at the brand new OneWelbeck Orthopaedics department in April. The COVID outbreak delayed the opening of the new department, so I wasn’t able to start there until late May. I am now doing adhoc clinics there, and am looking forward to increasing this to 3 clinics a week as we get busier.
Find out more about the SportsMed Clinic by visiting the website, or following Natasha on Twitter.
Read another lockdown story from Dr Leon Creaney here.
We’d love to hear your lockdown story. To share yours, please contact us at enquries@fsem.ac.uk
