The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Sports Medicine Advisory Committee has developed a medical release form for wrestlers to participate with skin lesion(s) as a suggested model you may consider adopting for your state. The CIF Sports Medicine Advisory Committee conducted a survey among specialty, academic, public health and primary care physicians and reviewed extensively the literature available on the communicability of various skin lesions at different stages of disease and treatment. No definitive data exists that allow us to absolutely predict when a lesion is no longer shedding organisms that could be transmitted to another wrestler. Another finding from the survey was the significant differences that exist among physicians relating to when they will permit a wrestler to return to participation after having a skin infection.
Neither the CIF nor the CIF Sports Medicine Advisory Committee presumes to dictate to professionals how to practice medicine. Neither is the information on this form meant to establish a standard of care. The CIF Sports Medicine Advisory Committee does feel, however, that the guidelines included on the form represent a summary consensus of the various responses obtained from the survey, from conversations and from the literature. The committee also feels that the components of the form are very relevant to addressing the concerns of coaches, parents, wrestlers and appropriate health-care professionals that led to the research into this subject and to the development of this form.