HEALTH & SCIENCE

Super Bowl Sunday means OT for EDs

Game days have been marked by alcohol, drug and food binges, causing medicine and public health to brace for its own postgame show.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. Jan. 26, 2004.

Ronald Charles, MD, medical director of the emergency department at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, doesn't mind working during the Super Bowl. He may not get to watch the game, but it's a quiet time in an otherwise frantic place. The game, watched by 130 million people, is perhaps the most popular television event of the year -- a cause to celebrate.

It's usually after the final play that the real action in the ED begins.

Dr. Charles expects that the end of this year's contest will bring the usual onslaught of patients who have passed out because of what they drank or who sustained traumatic injuries linked to alcohol-, drug- or fatigue-clouded judgment.

There will be the guys who communicated with their fists over referee calls or quarterback quality. There also will be the injured weekend warriors who, despite their usual inactive lifestyle, are inspired to go out and toss the old pigskin.

Meanwhile, those with chronic medical conditions may not be able to handle the deluge of food -- most of it high in fat, salt and sugar -- and may have neglected to take their medications.

Health data connected to the Super Bowl are limited. In general, emergency physicians report that what they see has much in common with the aftermath of other celebrations such as New Year's Eve or Cinco de Mayo.

"We are extra busy any time people have a tendency to celebrate excessively and then exhibit poor judgment," said Roger J. Lewis, MD, PhD, director of research in the Dept. of Emergency Medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

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