What is Sports Medicine?
Sometimes it feels like we have too many choices—for example, choosing a jar of peanut butter can be surprisingly difficult. Creamy or chunky? Wait, there’s also extra-chunky. What does the “organic” label even mean? Oh, there’s also almond butter...is that better for you? Similarly, the different types of medical and surgical specialists have grown so much, that deciding what is best for you and your loved ones can be very challenging.
To help you navigate through the many specialties available in orthopedics, I’d like to share what the field of Sports Medicine means to me.
Let’s start with the name: Sports Medicine.
By the words alone, it should involve the medical treatment of injuries and conditions related to athletics. And yes, that is a service we do specialize in, but it is not all of what we do. To get a better understanding, let’s take a closer look at what it takes to become a specialist in Sports Medicine—the medical training.
Sports Medicine is a specialty, so it’s important to know its foundation.
There are two main versions of Sports Medicine Specialists: (1) Orthopedic Surgery based and (2) Medical or Non-Operatively based. Each has a perspective, approach and treatments that are influenced by their training and certification.
I’m of the Orthopedic Surgery variety of Sports Medicine. This means I completed a 5-year residency program in Orthopedic Surgery after medical school. Like universities and schools, residency programs come in different blends of philosophy, experiences and opportunities. I was fortunate to have trained at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, a program with great history as the first teaching hospital built in the United States. With a strong focus on education and raising standards of care, leaders of every field in orthopedics contributed to my training there. I’m thankful for this foundation to become a well-rounded Orthopedic Surgeon. While my specialty label is Sports Medicine, lessons learned from trauma/fracture care, spine, joint replacement/arthroplasty, pediatrics, and hand surgery contribute to each patient’s evaluation.
To specialize in Sports Medicine requires an additional year of training called a fellowship. Although each institution is unique, most operative programs share a focus in particular treatments. Arthroscopy, a minimally invasive surgical technique, is a signature skill of a Sports Medicine specialist to perform many procedures in the shoulder, elbow, hip and knee. We also have particular interest in biologic treatments such as cartilage repair and platelet-rich plasma (PRP). Treatments are individualized with consideration of circumstances surrounding each patient such as timing of sports seasons, job requirements and activity goals.
My fellowship training was at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Clinic in Los Angeles—a program with a reputation that is humbling. The founders, Dr. Robert Kerlan and Dr. Frank Jobe, were pioneers of Sports Medicine as the field developed. They became the first physicians to care for nearly all of Los Angeles’ professional teams. The most well-known being the LA Dodgers—forever connected to the infamous Tommy John Surgery developed by Dr. Jobe, a procedure that has saved the careers of countless professional baseball players. The traditions of caring for patients with the highest of standards—professional athletes, blue collar workers, and weekend warriors alike—continue to this day with Dr. Neal ElAttrache and the team of physicians leading Kerlan-Jobe. Elements of our program’s history, approach and vision are carried forward to patients by alumni of the program.
Now that’s a long way to say that a Sports Medicine Specialist is a combination of many things.
In my case, it is an Orthopedic Surgeon with a special interest in helping people achieve their activity goals and improve their quality of life. Treatments are centered around the patient and their unique circumstances with goals to minimize risk and maximize outcome. Surgical options and non-invasive therapies are available to best fit an individual’s needs.
As you can see, an Orthopedic Specialist is much more than a simple label. We each have a unique blend of personality, training, experience, focus, and approach. In choosing a specialist, it is important how these factors contribute to the trust and comfort you have with your doctor.
