Actually a doctor is not needed. We would prefer someone in the medical field, but is not necessary.

The way the skin check will be handled is as follows. Wrestler enters check area. If he has a form filled out correctly for a suspicious area, he wrestles. We are not to override a skin form.

If an area is suspicious and does not have a form (like a kid gets poison Ivy or has a rash), we will not be able to make an interpretation if it is contageous or not. Only a dr. can make that distinction and if I'm in the room or anyone with my qualifications for determining skin disease (i.e. no qualifications), I immediately send them out of the weigh in area to go to a hospital or med assist to have it checked. With a Dr. in the room, he can make those distinctions. Since I can't, I treat it as contageous.

The purpose of the skin check area is to give the kids a one time check, rather than having the officials on the mat checking a kid, possibly three or four times during the tournamnet. The officials know that the wrestler has passed the check. It's not opening a can of worms because I think all of us understand at this point in the season, if something looks suspicious, we get a dr.'s note. The premise is that we don't know what the rash is and since we are not doctors, you will have to have a skin check form verifying that it is not contageous. That's much different than me saying, I don't think it's contageous and the next day 20 kids end up with ringworm or something.

However, thanks for the heads up. I didn't specify in the initial post and I'm sure there are some people out there that are beginning to get worried. Nothing to worry about. You have the paperwork and there's no problem.

Coach Gibson