Sport Risk Intelligence Courses

A comprehensive, evidence-based program in sideline and event medical coverage — Canadian Edition.

27 modules, each with a knowledge-check quiz (80% required to pass and unlock the next module) and a course-completion certificate once every quiz is passed.

Course structure

What each module covers

• Module 1 — Foundations: Role, Scope & the Medico-Legal Framework
  The sports medicine team, CAT(C) credentialing, CATA's Competency Framework, delegated acts, negligence, Good Samaritan protection across all provinces (and Quebec's categorically different duty to assist), consent and privacy (PHIPA/PIPEDA), fitness-to-play ethics, and documentation as a legal foundation.
• Module 2 — Emergency Action Planning
  EAP anatomy, venue mapping, Canada's five-level trauma-centre system and why designation level measurably affects mortality, air ambulance (Ornge/STARS, what3words), the medical time-out, communication redundancy, role rehearsal for thin-staffing days, and the after-action review loop.
• Module 3 — Equipment, Kit & Venue Resources
  Tiered kit design matched to sport/level/EMS-response-time, the lifesaving set, hemorrhage control (Stop the Bleed), immobilization devices, sport-specific tools, on-site cooling as lifesaving equipment, medications by provider scope, and a maintenance discipline built for Canadian climate extremes.
• Module 4 — Primary Survey & Field Emergency Care
  Scene safety, DRS-ABCDE, SAMPLE and the collapsed-athlete fast-discriminator triad, high-quality CPR to the current (October 2025) Heart & Stroke standard including the renewed rescue-breath emphasis, pit-crew choreography, field AED adaptations, hemorrhage and shock, and the ATMIST handoff.
• Module 5 — Cardiac Emergencies & Sudden Cardiac Arrest
  SCA epidemiology and causes by age group, the two perceptual traps (agonal breathing, myoclonic activity), the collapse-to-shock clock and AED program design with Canadian registries, commotio cordis and special-scenario resuscitation, post-ROSC care, and the pre-participation screening debate.
• Module 6 — Head & Spine
  Concussion recognition and red flags, the Amsterdam 2022 tool suite (CRT6/SCAT6/SCOAT6) and the 12 R's, the shift away from strict rest, Canadian clearance requirements under Rowan's Law, cervical-spine recognition and manual in-line stabilization, equipment-on airway management, equipment removal, and lift-and-slide transfer.
• Module 7 — Environmental Emergencies
  The heat-illness spectrum, EHS diagnosis (rectal temperature + CNS dysfunction) and the near-100%-survival evidence for cold-water immersion, WBGT-based policy, cold injury and hypothermia, the 30-30 lightning rule and reverse triage, and altitude and AQHI/wildfire smoke.
• Module 8 — Acute Musculoskeletal & Orthopedic Field Management
  On-field triage and the neurovascular check, fractures and splinting, dislocation reduction decisions joint by joint (and why hip dislocation is never a field reduction — the 6-hour AVN window), the four orthopedic emergencies, and soft-tissue injury with the pain-masking trap.
• Module 9 — Medical & Systemic Field Emergencies
  The exercise-associated collapse differential, exertional sickling and rhabdomyolysis, exercise-associated hyponatremia and its counterintuitive fluid-restriction principle, respiratory and anaphylactic emergencies, metabolic emergencies, thoracoabdominal/dental/ocular trauma, and skin/infectious/toxic presentations.
• Module 10 — Mental Health & Behavioral Emergencies
  Acute distress and medical mimics, suicidality and the current Canadian referral infrastructure (9-8-8, Kids Help Phone, Hope for Wellness), de-escalation and privacy in a public setting, psychological first aid after catastrophic events including for the medical team itself, and the current Canadian Safe Sport Program structure.
• Module 11 — Documentation, Communication & Handoff
  Contemporaneous real-time and post-event documentation, the structured EMS handoff, stakeholder and media communication through a single spokesperson, and clearance letters and injury surveillance using current IOC/STROBE-SIIS standardized definitions.
• Module 12 — Return-to-Play Decision-Making
  The Creighton/Shrier three-layer decision-based model with medical status as the gate, structural defences against coach/parent/athlete pressure, Ontario's "designated person" role, graduated return models across conditions, and the 2024 Guideline/Rowan's-Law timing alignment.
• Module 13 — Mass Gathering & Event Medicine
  Event medical command and ICS, PPR/TTHR predictive modeling with honest error rates (40-80% in the validation literature), START triage and tent flow, course/zone coverage and the finish-line differential, and mass-casualty contingency with a quantitative after-action review.
• Module 14 — Para-Athletes & Adaptive Sport
  Contains autonomic dysreflexia — a life-threatening hypertensive emergency in athletes with spinal cord injury at/above T6, unique to this population and not covered in the core series. Also: boosting as a banned and dangerous practice, impaired thermoregulation and blood-pressure lability, communication and consent across sensory/intellectual impairment, prosthetic/wheelchair problems including painless pressure injuries, and the medical role in classification.
• Module 15 — Anti-Doping & Therapeutic Use Exemptions
  How anti-doping is governed in Canada (Sport Integrity Canada, the CADP, the 2026 Prohibited List), the fact that support personnel are directly bound, checking every product in Global DRO, supplements as the high-risk category, TUEs and who needs one, the emergency-treatment/retroactive-TUE pathway, and sample collection.
• Module 16 — Advanced Field Emergencies
  The emergencies where the standard reflex fails: drowning (ventilation-first), foreign-body airway obstruction across all sequences, traumatic cardiac arrest (reversible causes before defibrillation), massive/pelvic/junctional hemorrhage and the pelvic binder, burns and blast/pyrotechnic injury including arena ammonia, and advanced breathing emergencies.
• Module 17 — The Female Athlete & Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport
  REDs per the 2023 IOC consensus and the IOC REDs CAT2, bone stress injuries and the energy-hormone-bone link, pregnancy and postpartum athletes, sex differences in ACL injury and concussion, and breast/chest and inclusive-care considerations. Closes with a lesson (17.6) on making REDs screening a program-level responsibility rather than an individual provider's judgment call.
• Module 18 — Pediatric & Youth Athlete Medicine
  Growth-plate and apophyseal injuries that do not occur in adults, pediatric vital-sign norms and the respiratory origin of most pediatric arrests, consent/assent and safeguarding, youth concussion and thermoregulation, and communicating with children and guardians. Closes with a lesson (18.6) on building youth-specific screening and staff training into a tournament, not leaving it to individual judgment.
• Module 19 — Pharmacology & Medication Management
  The sideline formulary bounded by scope and directive, the recurring emergency medications as indication-plus-caution pairs, Canadian cold-chain and storage realities, controlled substances and documentation, and the anti-doping cross-check before every administration. Closes with a lesson (19.6) on governing the formulary as a maintained program artifact with a review cadence and a named owner.
• Module 20 — Injury Prevention & the Pre-Participation Evaluation
  The PPE and clearance as a spectrum, evidence-based neuromuscular prevention programs and the adherence problem, equipment standards and rule modification, load management and overuse prevention, and integrating environmental and population risk screening into the EAP. Closes with a lesson (20.6) on injury surveillance as the feedback loop that closes prevention back into governance.
• Module 21 — Security, Public Health & Communicable Disease at Events
  The medical role in active-threat events (integrate, don't freelance), crowd crush as a distinct asphyxia-driven mass-casualty mechanism, provider bloodborne-pathogen exposure and time-critical PEP, communicable disease and outbreak protocols, and hazardous-materials coordination. Closes with a lesson (21.6) on the medical team's own debrief and psychological aftercare after a serious event.
• Module 22 — Team Travel, Remote & Expedition Coverage
  Cross-border kit legality and TUE validity, pre-travel health and destination risk assessment, jet lag and altitude, illness abroad and accessing care, repatriation/medevac/insurance, and coverage without EMS backup (deeper kit, concrete evacuation, lower threshold). Closes with a lesson (22.7) on governing travel medicine as a program activity with its own binder and medical-direction sign-off.
• Module 23 — Medical Direction, Governance & Quality
  The medical director role, online vs. offline medical control, protocols and standing orders across mixed-credential teams (governance harmonizes scope, never expands it past a regulatory ceiling), quality assurance and case review, and the formal EMS interface. Closes with a lesson (23.6) on liability coverage and governance document retention.
• Module 24 — Skills, Simulation & Competency Assessment
  The psychomotor spine of the course: why skills decay within months, the core skill set with practice frequencies, scenario design that tests systems rather than skills, OSCE-style assessment with defined critical failures, and a defensible recertification cadence. The course's case boxes form a ready-made scenario bank. Closes with a lesson (24.6) on building a training program from zero, including a realistic first-90-days sequence and budget realities.
• Module 25 — Sport-Specific Coverage
  Combat sports (weight cutting, stoppage authority), aquatic sports, motorsport and equestrian (high-energy trauma, live scene hazards), gymnastics/cheer/diving (catastrophic cervical spine), winter/mountain (remote coverage in a cold coat), and cycling and hockey — the Canadian default venue that compresses more of this course into one place than any other sport. This is the sport-agnostic bridge; for the full 16-family drill-down, see the companion Course 2 — Sport-Specific Coverage. Closes with a lesson (25.7) giving a mechanism-first method for applying this framework to any sport not explicitly covered.
• Module 26 — Professional Practice: Cultural Safety, Nutrition, Emerging Tools & the Masters Athlete
  Cultural safety as a clinical-accuracy issue (disclosure is your highest-yield diagnostic tool), trauma-informed and inclusive practice, nutrition and hydration in both directions plus supplement/anti-doping risk, point-of-care ultrasound as an emerging credential-bound tool, and the masters athlete's distinct risk profile. Closes with a lesson (26.5) tying cultural safety, nutrition, POCUS, and masters-athlete care together into a whole-person practitioner model.
• Module 27 — Documentation Craft: Writing Notes That Hold Up
  Why the clinical note is written for a future reader who wasn't there, the "denies" (subjective) vs. "absent" (objective) distinction and why negative screens need more than a bare conclusion, eliminating editorializing in favour of reconstructable observation, documenting a valid AMA refusal (capacity plus explained risk, not just outcome), the paper line-through/electronic-addendum correction procedure, and a courtroom-scrutiny illustration drawn from public trial reporting — used strictly to demonstrate the module's documentation principles, not as legal or clinical commentary on the case itself. Builds directly on Module 1 (documentation as legal foundation) and Module 11 (the operational documentation workflow).

Access & Updates

Your enrollment includes lifetime access to this course. You will continue to have access to all course content — including future updates and revisions as they're released — even after you've completed the course and received your certificate.