The Sports Medicine (Sports Med) clinic at Bonita Vista High (BVH) recently received new equipment, benefitting the students who go there for rehabilitation and healing. Every year, hundreds of dollars are put into buying new supplies for the clinic. This year, materials such as training tables and Game Ready sleeves were bought.

“They provide great treatment for injured students during our lunch and after school rehabilitation and injury clinics. During these clinics, students from our Health Career Intern course get to use this equipment to help heal patients and gain valuable medical experience,” Sports Med II, Health Career Intern teacher and BVH Athletic Trainer George Lafiguera said.

Sports Med intern and senior Courtney Hunter went into depth on the new Game Ready sleeves, saying that they got new kinds of sleeves they didn’t have before.

“We got a lot of different sleeves for Game Ready machines. So basically, what a Game Ready is, it’s a therapeutic modality that we use to help with rehabilitation,” Hunter said. “Wherever the injured area is, [like] your arm or leg, you put these sleeves over it. It has a combination of compression and cold therapy, so that helps with rehab.”

In addition, Sports Med interns and seniors Jayden McPherson and Jezreel Sanchez expressed how the sleeves were beneficial in helping patients at the clinic.

“We got more sleeves, so we’re able to put them on different parts of the body that we [weren’t] able to before,” McPherson said. Sanchez added on by saying, “getting new equipment also allows us to treat a wider variety of patients rather than just the little stuff we originally had.”

The sleeves weren’t the only new equipment that Sports Med received this year. According to Lafiguera, they get new equipment annually. The type of equipment the class currently has can be found in hospitals, physical therapy clinics and athletic training rooms.

“[This year] we have received a Thermex Hot/Cold Compression unit, Normatec Recovery Compression unit, True Stretch Stretching Cage, new classroom desk/treatment table hybrids, electrical stimulation machines, ultrasound machines, etc.,” Lafiguera said. “Over many years we have accumulated over 50k worth of supplies and equipment.”

He also mentioned that medical equipment “is expensive” and “a lot of the equipment in the clinic costs over 5,000 dollars a piece.”

“Over the last seven years I have donated about 2,000 dollars each year of my personal salary to purchase equipment and supplies to grow our program. Along with this, the CTE department of our district has also funded a lot of these items,” Lafiguera said. 

Adding on to that, he encourages students to buy Dippin Dots and other snacks at the Sports Med tent during football games and food fairs to help the class with fundraising.

“We fundraise a little through our Sports Medicine Club to help provide treatment equipment from our clinic, but this is student-run and we try to have the students determine what to buy with this money based on the needs of our school,” Lafiguera said.

With all the ways money is gained and earned, Sports Med puts it to use by benefitting teachers, interns and patients.

“I pushed to get these items [to] help provide quality treatment to our students and also to help with meaningful learning experiences,” Lafiguera said. “As a teacher this equipment helps me provide current and relevant experiences to my students by allowing them to see and use equipment found in modern medical environments.”

The new equipment bought this year provides learning opportunities for interns to experience and observe how patients are being helped and healed.

“When you work in the clinic, you see patients multiple times. You see them throughout how long their rehab takes, and so you see their progress which is really cool,” Hunter said.