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Thursday, August 8, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com NEWS

LSA
junior
Morgan
McCaul has been selected
by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer,
pending state senate approv-
al, to serve on the Michigan
Board of Athletic Trainers as
a representative of the gen-
eral public. McCaul, a sister
survivor and sexual assault
prevention advocate, said her
personal experiences with
athletic trainers give her a
different view to bring to the
board.
“I think I have a unique
perspective to bring to the
board, because not only was
I introduced to the profes-
sion of athletic training as a
patient, but I was also victim-
ized during that introduction
— under the guise of medical
treatment — and the failure
to ensure that proper pro-
cedures were taking place,”
McCaul said. “My priority is
really the safety and wellbe-
ing of all Michiganders both
in their lives outside of that
exam room, but also inside
of it.”
The statewide board is
tasked with overseeing the
continued
education
and
competency of those who
hold licenses and taking
action against those who
have adversely affected the
health, safety and welfare of
the public. It is comprised of
11 total voting members — six
athletic trainers, two physi-
cians and three public mem-
bers — with terms lasting
four years.
Tiffany Brown, Whitmer’s
press secretary, wrote in a
statement to The Daily that
Whitmer sees McCaul play-
ing an active role in ensuring
the work of athletic trainers
is conducive to rehabilitation
and improved health.
“Athletic
trainers
are
vital to the treatment and
management
of
individu-
als to prevent injury and aid
in rehabilitation and condi-
tioning,” Brown wrote. “The

administration is proud to
appoint Morgan McCaul to
further the mission of the
Michigan Board of Athletic
Trainers.”
McCaul works at Safe-
House, an organization dedi-
cated to ending domestic
violence and sexual abuse,
and is involved with the
University of Michigan Sex-
ual Assault Prevention and
Awarness Center. She also
serves on the board of the
Jane Doe Fund, a pro-
choice advocacy group,
and as a consultant
for Survivor Strong, a
support network aid-
ing survivors through
advocacy and educa-
tion.
Part
of
the
reason her
abuser
could
work for
so
long
without
anyone
raising
a
red flag was
his
alleged
expertise in the
field of athletic
training.
One
of
McCaul’s
goals
as
a
public mem-
ber, she said,
is to make
inroads
in
increasing
account-
ability
as
well
as
educating
patients.
McCaul also
said
she
hopes
to
create
a
culture of
trauma-
informed
care
among ath-
letic train-
ers
and
other
medical
profes-
sionals.

“Especially as a repre-
sentative of the general pub-
lic, I want to do outreach,”
McCaul said. “It’s a passion
of mine to be a facilitator of
connections and education,
so I think using my back-
ground and my professional
experience in the violence
prevention sphere can be
something that’s really bene-
ficial. I hope to bring trauma-
informed discussions into
the medical profession, both
inside and outside
of my role as a
board member.”
According to
the
SAMHSA-
HRSA
Center
for
Integrated
Health Solutions,
an organi-
zation

run by the
National

C
o
u
n
c
i
l
for
Behav-
ioral
Health,
trauma-
informed
care recog-
nizes
the
widespread
impact
of
trauma,
as
well as the
signs
and
symptoms
of
trauma
and
inte-
grates knowl-
edge
about
trauma
into
policies, pro-
cedures
and
practices.

With the goal
of
avoiding
retraumati-
zation,
trau-
ma- informed
approaches
are linked to
positive health
outcomes
for
patients.
University
alum
Laura
Sinko,
who
wrote
her
Ph.D.
in

Nursing dissertation about
trauma and inclusive health-
care, said survivors should
have a seat at the table in
health care discussions. Just
as medical professionals do
not know the full extent of
their patients’ injuries with-
out listening to them, she
said, care cannot be as effec-
tive as possible without lis-
tening to those who seek it.
Sinko
said
trauma-
informed care at its core
is helping patients receive
the
professional
medi-
cal treatment they need in
order to reach their desired
physical state. She said this
type of care is like wearing
gloves when touching blood
because it is an approach
that ensures every person is
being treated safely, regard-
less of prior experiences.
“Whenever you’re touch-
ing blood products, you need
to wear these gloves, because
you never know what’s going
on in their blood and what
they’ve
been
through,”
Sinko said. “You want to
protect yourself but you also
want to protect them. I think
of this similarly to trauma-
informed care — you always
want to be wearing those
gloves when you’re interact-
ing with patients, because
just because a patient hasn’t
disclosed a traumatic expe-
rience to us doesn’t mean it
hasn’t occurred.”
Sinko noted that many
people have faced some
form of trauma, and a trau-
ma-informed
approach
can reduce stress among
patients. A study from SAM-
HSA-HRSA found 61 per-
cent of men and 51 percent
of women report exposure
to at least one traumatic life
event.
A key part of trauma-
informed care, Sinko said, is
respecting both the patients’
boundaries as well as includ-
ing survivors in conversa-
tions about health care.

Thousands of vegans and
vegetarians traveled to the
Washtenaw
County
Fair-
grounds on Saturday, Aug.
3, for the third annual Great
Lakes Regional VegBash, a
Midwestern vegan and veg-
etarian food festival. Attend-
ees
sampled
and
bought
various
food,
crafts
and
health products from a wide
range of vendors based across
Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and
Illinois.
Bill Lonskey, the event
organizer and owner of the
Quintessential Event Compa-
ny, explained he started the
event hoping to help attend-
ees discover new foods.
“We’re a unique event for
vegans and vegetarians and
those who are interested in
exploring more plant-based
options in their diet to come
out and check out some won-
derful restaurants,” Lonskey
said.
The theme of VegBash 2019
was “The Summer of Veggie
Love” in honor of the 50th
anniversary of Woodstock,

a 1969 music festival widely
associated with the American
counterculture
movement
of the 1960s. In line with the
theme, attendees had the
opportunity to speak briefly
on camera about an area of
activism they are passionate
about as they walked in.
The project, a new intro-
duction this year, will be
compiled into a series of vid-
eos later posted online, Lon-
skey said.
“Woodstock and the whole
hippie movement was a pin-
nacle time of activism in this
country,” Lonskey said. “Veg-
ans and vegetarians particu-
larly are very much into their
activism, so we saw a lot of
correlation there.”
This spirit for activism is
at the core of Radical Plants,
a
vegan-specialty
foods
company owned by Melissa
Heath. By introducing cus-
tomers to superdip, the com-
pany’s
oil-free,
sugar-free
dip, Heath said she hopes to
inspire people to follow the
company’s slogan and “eat
plants for a change.”

Fest brings
vegetarian,
vegan food to
Washtenaw

Attendees sample plant-based foods,
camp at fairgrounds in Ann Arbor

Read more at michigandaily.com

Student tapped for athletic
trainer oversight board

CLAIRE HAO
Summer News Editor

ALEX HARRING
Summer Managing News Editor

Read more at michigandaily.com

Gretchen Whitmer selects Morgan McCaul to represent general public

COURTESY OF CLAIRE HAO

COURTESY
OF
MORGAN
MCCAUL