Health Care for NFL Players: Upholding Physician Standards and Enhancing the Doctor‐Patient Relationship

Beginning my third year with the Kansas City Chiefs and being also a medical student at McGill University, I was at first a little reluctant to comment on Glenn Cohen et al.’s critique of the National Football League's structure involving player health and team doctors, but the opportunity to provide a perspective as both a football player and a medical student was too much to forgo. Because of my athletic and academic background, I am often asked what I think about injuries in professional sports and about the role of sports medicine physicians, and Cohen et al.’s article demands a thoughtful reaction. I want to suggest that the fundamental principles concerning the medical profession and the doctor‐patient relationship provide additional arguments for some of the solutions that Cohen et al. discuss. The professional self‐regulation that the proposed medical committee could provide and the reliance on a doctor who was not hired by the player's employer—the club—for a second opinion are both good ways to minimize conflicts of interest.