Carina (Stern) Nasrallah ’15, a graduate of Shenandoah University’s Master of Science in Athletic Training and Performing Arts Medicine certificate programs, is one of almost 50 dance medicine professionals contributing to an upcoming textbook, “Dance Injuries: Reducing Risk and Maximizing Performance.”
Nasrallah said the book’s editor, Dr. Jeffrey Russell, who is one of her mentors and former professors, invited her to be a contributing author. “In the shadow of Dr. Russell’s established and successful career, I feel humbled and honored to contribute as a young professional in the field,” Nasrallah said.
She is working with a physical therapist and physician on the chapter, “Working Effectively with Healthcare Professionals.” It’s an “interdisciplinary perspective on how dancers, specifically college students, can communicate clearly with healthcare professionals when seeking care for an injury,” she said.”It is written to provide dancers with tools for seeking appropriate dance medicine providers, what to expect during an injury evaluation, and how to effectively communicate information about their injury.”
As a licensed athletic trainer with Houston Methodist Orthopedics & Sports Medicine, which is the official health care provider for the Houston Ballet & Houston Ballet Academy, Nasrallah is immersed in work related to the book. “I spend every day in the clinic educating dancers about their bodies and their injuries. It’s my goal to equip them to make meaningful and informed decisions about taking care of the fine-tuned and resilient instruments with which they perform,” she said. “Much of what I wrote in the textbook directly echoes what my dancers at Houston Ballet hear in the clinic regularly. The process of writing helped me to articulate the language we encourage the dancers to use when describing pain and what they are feeling. Most of our clinical diagnoses are primarily based on the dancers’ medical history and their symptom patterns — so our diagnosis will only be as accurate as the dancers’ ability to clearly communicate those details.”
The book is set to be published later this year or in early 2023 by Human Kinetics.
Featured photo by EVOKE
