France Bleu: How did you become a doctor at the Stade Malherbe Caen?
Cyril Bellot: First on tiptoe. Herve Schulc came to get me in 2007 to help him. I was more like his assistant. He trained me. I owe him everything that happened here. I became his replacement. And then, we gradually started to really work together at the Malherbe stadium.
For ten years now, I no longer do general medicine. Basically, I am a general practitioner with a training a little more focused on emergencies, therefore emergency physicians. And then, gradually, I trained in sports medicine precisely through Hervé Schulc.
I took several degrees in sports medicine and now that’s all I do. I have a sports medicine practice in Caen only. Everything related to bones, muscles, joints, tendons. And then I have my activity within the stadium which now takes up almost 100% of my schedule
FB: Compared to a general practitioner, what exactly is the training for doing sports medicine? What qualifications are needed?
The base of general medicine remains the same. It’s eight to nine years of study. Sports medicine degrees, there are many. I do not have. I spent two. These are diplomas specific to traumatology.
FB: What is the work of a club doctor and what are your prerogatives?
Things are changing a lot. At the time of Doctor Schulc, we started almost from nothing. It’s a real medical structure that has been set up. Today it’s really about supporting the team: whether by attending training, by preventing and mainly managing injuries.
Injury management represents 90% of my schedule: being able to make a diagnosis, being able to set up a recovery program, deadlines and meeting these deadlines, whether at the rehabilitation or rehabilitation level.
FB: We always say that the relationship with the staff is very important and that it’s a relationship of trust. You have to explain when you have to hold the player back a little bit, not bring him back right away? Is it a whole balance that has to be put in place?
Yes, it’s probably the most complicated part, especially when you’re young, when you arrive and start a bit in this environment. I’ve been here for a few years now and I’ve worked with a lot of coaches here. But it is true that it is the most complicated part. It’s being able to convey the interest of the player but not forgetting the interest of the team. So, we protect the health of the players but also we seek performance and above all we seek victory.
FB: Compared to conventional medicine, is there a notion of risk-taking in quotation marks, ie you have to treat, but also treat quickly, prepare quickly and relaunch the players? It is not at all the same medicine as conventional medicine?
That’s quite right. That is to say that we are always on the wire. We are with professional athletes. The coaches want to get the players back as soon as possible. We want to get them back on the pitch as quickly as possible, while avoiding recurrence of injuries because that’s what we fear the most in an injury. If we go too fast, we will have recurrences. So we are on this balance. We’re on this thread all the time.
FB: This season is perhaps one of the busiest of your career?
Yes, without hesitation. It was the busiest season of my career. We had a start to the season with traumas that we had almost never seen. We started the season with two crosses. We had a lot of knee operations and pubic operations. Honestly, I had never seen that. We asked ourselves a lot of questions, not to mention the Covid. Without hesitation, it’s the busiest season we’ve had.
FB: What are the most complicated injuries for a sports doctor?
The most complicated remains the major traumas that we have seen. You have seen, for example, the injury of Mehdi Chahiri. These are complex files because you have to manage the emergency, you have to manage the surgery, be in contact with the surgeons. You have to manage after surgery. You have to manage the player’s mind because it’s often very difficult to accept an injury like that. Whether it’s Mehdi’s or the two crusaders we had. These injuries are the most complicated to manage since we leave on months of work. These are very large files.
FB: There are also sometimes complicated injuries, such as pubalgia, which are longer and more difficult to treat?
Yes, it’s a different type of injury. On a crossover or on a fracture, you will almost always have the same program. You can almost write it down in advance. On pubalgia phenomena, inflammatory phenomena, you are more in the management and in the prevention precisely to be able to avoid long stoppages and leave the players as much as possible on the ground as long as they can be efficient.
FB: Players are special patients. They have a relationship to pain that is totally different from ours. Looks like they live with the pain a bit?
Yes, so I always say that pain is a bit subjective. It really depends a lot on the people. But indeed, a professional football player is different from a player or an average sportsman. He may be able to bear his pain a little more sometimes, but not always. In fact, they are also very in tune with their bodies. The most important thing is to get to know them well. And when you know the players well, you begin to identify which player will be able to go beyond. And which player is going to have to be more spared.
FB: Do they often come to consult you about listening to their bodies?
Yes, they are very attentive. They come to see us a lot, even for minor sores. But that’s what we ask of them. We ask them to report everything to us. So they know it. Young people still have a lot to learn, but most are really professionals. And when there are really annoying things, they know it. They feel it.
FB: It depends on age and experience? We saw, for example, Ilyes Najim take it upon himself to play and finally get injured against Nancy. A mistake that a Prince Oniangué who left Toulouse on time last season might not have made?
Yes quite. So we can’t blame them. When you’re young, when you’re 18 and you’re selected in a professional group to play in Ligue 1 or Ligue 2, not reporting a little pain or a little injury to be able to play at all costs can be understood. We might all have made the same mistake. There is no question of resenting them for that. Once again, it is up to us to track them and know them so that we can avoid this.
FB: It’s an exciting job. Is it totally different from conventional medicine?
Yes, it’s completely different. It’s exciting. If I’ve been there for 14 years, it’s because I’m passionate about it. I love this job. It’s complex. Afterwards, it is also comfortable medicine. You have to be honest. We are not under pressure like when I was in the emergency room or when we were even a general practitioner. We have time. We have the means. We have a great structure. So yes, it’s exciting.
FB: But there is still this management of a different stress with economic and sporting responsibilities that we might not have in the emergency room where the interventions are sometimes vital?
Exactly where we are, we are a little in the medicine of the rich. You have to be completely honest, that is to say that you also have to manage this timing all the time. And then, indeed, we are still more comfortable.
FB: You don’t always travel. How does it happen?
The will, for the moment, was not to take a doctor on the move. Few Ligue 2 clubs travel with their doctor. It is also a question of budget. It’s a question of the past. My desire was also, to start this season, not to travel at family level. And then, I am training a young person with me. What is certain is that in Ligue 1, you will need a doctor on the move. And maybe even in the years or the seasons to come, I will make the trips for the most part. So far, I don’t do much.