FARMVILLE, Va. – Longwood Sports Medicine is excited to announce that it will host the Big South Health Summit on Monday and Tuesday, May 6-7. The summit will focus on student-athlete mental health care and features six speakers who will present on topics related to a student-athlete's mental health.
 
"It is a privilege to be able to host this year's Big South Health Summit," said Longwood Associate Athletics Director for Student-Athlete Enhancement Rick Canter. "This gives Longwood the opportunity to showcase our Student-Athlete Enhancement (SAE) team and its truly interdisciplinary approach to student-athlete support and care. With mental illness related-symptoms on the rise in NCAA student-athletes, a large proportion of the summit will focus on mental health prevention and intervention strategies."
 
Two of Longwood's team physicians, Dr. Kathleen Dec and Dr. Mary Caldwell, both from VCU Health, will speak at the event. Longwood's Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) team will send Dr. Jenny Glass and Allison Gatta to co-present at the summit as part of a partnership the Longwood Sports Medicine department is creating with CAPS. Michael Cerreto, Dr. Tim Coffey and Tina Shiver also will give presentations on other facets of mental health and the student-athlete.
 
Dr. Dec's session will be titled "Physical Medicine and Movement in Evaluation and Somatic Dysfunction". She is the Director of Sports Medicine for the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and of Sports Medicine and Performance at the Neuroscience, Orthopedic and Wellness Center for VCU Health. Dr. Dec she has been the head team physician for Longwood University since 2005 and holds more than 30 years of experience as a sideline physician across all levels, from youth sports through professional events and with Olympic and Paralympic teams. She received her MD degree at Michigan State University before completing her internship at St. Vincent's Hospital and Health Care Center in Indiana and trained in traditional Chinese medicine at Beijing Medical University in Beijing, China. Dr. Dec has numerous publications and was recently one of the three physicians awarded a multi-million dollar grant by the Children's Hospital Foundation in Richmond for concussion and TBI in youth.
 
Dr. Caldwell will give a presentation on "Interventional Musculoskeletal Injections in Athletes: Do they work?" A former NCAA Division I middle distance runner at Lafayette College, Dr. Caldwell has worked with multiple professional sports teams, including the Joffrey Ballet, the Washington Wizards, Washington Mystics and Washington Spirit and has served as the team physician for George Washington University before currently serving as a team physician for Longwood. She completed medical school at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and did her residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. She is published in multiple topics and takes great pride in caring for adaptive athletes.
 
From CAPS, Dr. Glass, a licensed clinical psychologist, and Allison Gatta will co-present on "Counseling Considerations for Today's Student-Athletes". Dr. Glass has experience in a variety of settings in her years as a licensed clinical psychologist. She is committed to addressing social justice, cultural diversity and evidence-based practice. Gatta is working as a post-master's resident in counseling at Longwood after completing her master's degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at West Chester University.
 
Michael Cerreto will speak both in the morning and afternoon. He is a cognitive rehabilitation therapist and certified mental performance coach with A Talented Mind Clinic. He has worked with college and professional athletes at Longwood, University of Virginia, University of Arkansas, Harvard, NC State, VCU, Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Indians and St. Louis Cardinals as well as several USA national teams and also consults to the Department of Defense on mental performance issues for national security agencies. Cerreto was also a professor at University of Richmond and American University's NTL Institute of Applied Behavioral Science and has written four books. He presents at national and international conferences on his performance psychology research and clinical practices in the field of sports, performing arts, cognitive orders and cancer recover.
 
Dr. Coffey is set to present on Landing Error Scoring System (L.E.S.S.) in a session titled "L.E.S.S. is More: Student-Athlete Injury Risk Reduction with the Landing Error Scoring System". He serves as an assistant professor of kinesiology at Longwood and is the faculty athletics representative to the NCAA. He combined mechanical engineering and biology for his bachelor's from the University of Maryland Baltimore County and earned his master's in biomechanics from Texas Tech. After working for several years at Texas Tech and VCU, Coffey completed his Ph.D. in Rehabilitation and Movement Services at VCU with a focus on neuromuscular dynamics.
 
Tina Shiver will give a presentation on "A Functional Medicine Approach on how Fueling Properly can Support an Athlete's Brain, Sleep and Performance". Shiver is a registered dietitian and a certified integrative functional medicine certified practitioner. She holds a master's in nutrition from James Madison as well as an MF in rehabilitation counseling from VCU. Her education and experience have helped hundreds of patients improve the quality of their health through diagnostic testing, nutritional counseling, coaching and supplementation.
 
The Big South Health Summit, presented jointly this year by the Big South, Longwood and VCU Health and sponsored in part by Bob McCloskey Insurance and VICIS with a lunch by the Fishin' Pig, is in its third year. It has quickly grown from a half day event into a full day dedicated to professional growth with a second day set aside for the head athletic trainers from each school to hold their annual meeting. This is the first year Longwood has hosted the health summit after High Point and UNC Asheville hosted the first and second years, respectively.
 
Longwood's sports medicine and sports performance departments have spearheaded the effort to host the event. Canter, Director of Sports Medicine Carly Fullerton, Director of Sports Performance Tyler Wrenn and Assistant Director of Sports Medicine Morgan Langton have taken the lead on the planning, coordination and logistics of the event.
 
The event is free to all athletic trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, physicians and administrators at Big South universities. The deadline to register is Wednesday, May 1. Register here. For questions, contact Morgan Langton at langtonmm@longwood.edu.
 
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