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Concussion: Dr. Bennet Omalu's Death

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The movie Concussion stars Will Smith as Dr. Bennet Omalu who performs autopsies and looks into why people died. He works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and has to look into what caused fifty-year-old former NFL quarterback Mike Webster to die. Dr. Omalu finds that Webster had been pulling his teeth out and super gluing them back in. Dr. Omalu who does not watch football catches a glimpse of it one day and begins to study it. He realizes how hard these players are getting hit when contact is initiated and tackles are made. He begins to do more research and finds that animals like woodpeckers and rams have built in shock absorption that protects their craniums from hitting their skulls, but humans do not have this feature. Human brains sit in a fluid disconnected from the skull so every time a football player gets hit the brain slams into the skull. Dr. Omalu finds that humans will obtain a concussion at a force of 60g and NFL players receive blows at 100g. Players were committing suicide by many different was such as shooting themselves, crashing their cars, or drinking antifreeze. Dr. Omalu found out they were all suffering from CTE, which stands for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. CTE is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain …show more content…

Dr. Omalu was a perfect example of how a health professional can be an advocate for this particular issue. You always have to have your patient’s best interest in mind and continue to fight for that until others realize that that is the right thing to do. And I think that is how it will impact my future as a nursing professional and my practice. I must always advocate for my patients whether other people understand that or not. Also, I should continue to look for a solution to a problem until I find the answer. I could not find an article by the American Nurses Association on this specific topic of concussions and

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