1:06 p.m., Oct. 12, 2009----As an athletic trainer, biomechanics researcher and an athlete herself, University of Delaware doctoral student Laura Miller knows a lot about shoulder injuries.

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So, when she was working recently at a UD women's rugby game and assisted a visiting player who had dislocated her right shoulder going into a tackle, Miller says it was “nothing heroic -- nothing that athletic trainers here don't do every single day.”

But to Maria Muscara, the injured player from LaSalle University, Miller's work on the sidelines of the game was very special. “I was in excruciating pain, and my shoulder was mangled,” she wrote in a note of thanks to Miller and Thomas Kaminski, associate professor and director of athletic training education at UD.

“Laura talked me through everything, and right there, not even five minutes after the injury happened, she had me seated in a chair and put my shoulder nicely back in place. It was instant relief, and I could move again.”

Describing Miller as “calm and collected,” Muscara noted that she explained everything to her and to her father, who was attending the game as a spectator, and recommended that she have X-rays taken. When she went to the emergency room, Muscara said, the doctor “could not believe how well [Miller] put my shoulder back together ... and said that the trainer who took care of me must have known what she was doing.”

Miller, who teaches an athletic training course for exercise science students not majoring in the field and who conducts research on shoulder injuries in softball pitchers, said she works home rugby matches to keep her clinical skills sharp and to help athletes. The technique she used to correctly position Muscara's shoulder, called “reducing the shoulder,” was one she learned working as an athletic trainer at UD while attending graduate school.

She received her undergraduate degree at Canisius College, where she was a fast-pitch softball pitcher until sidelined by her own shoulder injury, and then earned her master's degree in 2008 at UD in exercise science, with a concentration in biomechanics. She now is on track to earn her doctorate in the interdisciplinary Biomechanics and Movement Science program in August. Her research focus is, not surprisingly, shoulder biomechanics -- with an eye to injuries caused by overuse -- particularly in women softball pitchers.

“We don't know much about the biomechanics of softball, especially compared to baseball, where there's been a lot of research,” Miller said. “It's believed that underhand pitching [used in softball] is a more natural motion than baseball pitchers use, but we don't know what the effects of doing that motion over and over are.

“I see a wide-open door for this area of research, and I'm grateful to have my foot in it and contribute to the general body of knowledge in a sport I love.”

Kaminski, who also is Miller's graduate adviser, described her and other athletic trainers at UD as dedicated both to the athletes they help and also to continually using and improving their skills. He described Miller as “epitomizing the best of our graduate students.” The undergraduate athletic training major is a popular and selective one, he said, with 50 students currently enrolled, all of whom complete numerous clinical rotations off campus in addition to their academic work.

“Our students truly get a quality education,” Kaminski said. “They interact daily with professionals in the art and science of athletic training.”

Article by Ann Manser
Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson