U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research's Victor A. Convertino, Ph.D., received the Texas Regional Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine Honor Award Feb. 28, at an annual conference at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.

Convertino, a physiologist, researcher and tactical combat casualty care research task area program manager with USAISR, received the award for his "outstanding contributions to exercise and sports medicine in the State of Texas," as notated on the award plaque.

At TACSM's invitation, Convertino presented the keynote address at the chapter's annual meeting. Speaking before 400 researchers and students from academia and government, Convertino delivered his presentation, entitled "Career Paths with Training in Exercise Science: 40 Years of Lessons Learned."

"The primary focus of my lecture was to present to the audience, which were mostly graduate students, a perspective that their training in exercise science, particularly physiology, lays a firm foundation for a career path with unique opportunities for developing solutions that can translate to real-world operational problems," said Convertino.

Convertino continued, "I described that the approach for developing technologies for diagnostic and therapeutic applications in the care of prehospital patients with life-threatening hemorrhage could be used to assess and manage healthy individuals. This could be during the stress of exercise or as life-saving interventions in athletes who are severely dehydrated or develop shock due to heat exposure or heat exhaustion."

During his lecture Convertino reminded the students that Albert Einstein challenged researchers with the notion that 'imagination is more important than knowledge.' He explained that one's imagination allows them apply learned knowledge and develop new concepts and technologies that can be used to improve human quality of life.

Convertino then asked the audience to imagine the use of new computer-based technologies that can measure the ability of the body to compensate for the demands of physical work or exercise and ultimately predict or enhance physical performance."

It is this imagination that Convertino has relied on which has earned him recognition within the combat casualty care arena.

"Perhaps the most gratifying aspect of this award is that it was presented by a professional organization that is outside of combat casualty care," Convertino said. "This award recognizes the impact of research being conducted by the TCCCR task area which has broad implications for advancing the understanding of mechanisms and relationships fundamental to physiology."

Convertino also stated that such implications were evident by two new collaborations that evolved from investigators who attended the lecture and are interested in the applications of diagnostic algorithms developed by the TCCCR task area. These include management of exercise performance and monitoring women who undergo epidurals and hemorrhage during childbirth.

"I believe we will change the physiology textbooks" Convertino concluded.