BUSM’s Cantu Wins Sports Medicine Award

Robert Cantu, MD, clinical professor of neurosurgery at Boston University School of Medicine and co-director of BU’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE), has been honored with the Dr. Ernst Jokl Sports Medicine Award from the United States Sports Academy. Dr. Cantu is a pioneer in the diagnosis and treatment of concussions. He serves as a founding member and Chairman of the Medical Advisory Board, Sports Legacy Institute and co-director of the Neurologic Sports Injury Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Cantu is known worldwide for his work on catastrophic head and neck injuries and post-concussive syndrome. He was the first doctor to establish a grading scale (Grades 1-3) for concussions, based on symptoms at the time of injury. This work has provided medical professionals with vital guidelines where none previously existed. From his data, valuable contributions have been made in sports safety, injury treatment, and accident reduction.

Dr. Cantu is a valuable voice of sports medicine to television, newspaper, and magazine reporters about the debate involving National Football League (NFL) policies on concussions and studies linking brain disease with head injuries incurred on the football field. This issue is important in many sports that impact both professionals and young amateurs throughout their lives.

Given annually, the Dr. Ernst Jokl Sports Medicine Award is named in honor of a former Olympic athlete, international sports medicine scholar, and director of the University of Kentucky Rehabilitation Center. It is awarded to experts who contribute significantly to the growth and development of sports medicine through practice and/or scholarly activity. The individual should exhibit a mastery of some aspect of sports medicine through practice or research, be well known in the sports medicine field, and have an abiding belief in ethical behavior and its practice in pursuit of knowledge.

The United States Sports Academy is an independent, nonprofit, accredited, special mission sports university, created to serve the nation and world with programs in instruction, research, and service

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