In this episode of Transforming Sport, I interview Sport and Leisure Cultures research group member Dr Alex Channon about his ongoing research with combat sport medics.  An expert in mixed martial arts and combat sport scholarship, and an avid practitioner, Dr Channon recently turned his attention to medical care, or lack thereof within combat sports. Here he discusses the importance of situating sport medics within the social, economic, and political frameworks which place pressures on combatants, sports organizers, coaches, broadcasters and medics to provide a spectacle for viewers, often at the expense of the health of athletes. Noting a lack of regulation for medical care by any governing body for MMA sport within the UK, Dr Channon discusses the variations in medical care, who is defined as a sports medic and what strategies medics use in what are often ethically fraught situations. Dr Channon has a recently published academic article in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. 

He can be found on twitter at @DrAlexChannon, and his other research is accessible via his University of Brighton staff profile page: https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/persons/alex-channon