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Historically, sports medicine has
been thought of as the care of
athletes, and only athletes,
specifically physicians
being on the sideline or caring for
them in a training room setting.
But over the years I
feel it's evolved, and
now it's involved with the care
of just active individuals.
That can include weekend warriors,
those that are say in softball,
basketball, soccer, even runners.
And really caring for
their individual needs and
specific injuries that they develop
with a active healthy lifestyle.
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Primary care sports medicine
physician is an individual who
completed a residency in either
family medicine, internal medicine,
pediatrics, emergency medicine, or
physical medicine rehabilitation.
And then those individuals
do an extra year of training
which is specialized
in sports medicine.
While in sports medicine orthopaedic
surgeon will complete an orthopaedic
residency and then do a one year
fellowship in sports medicine.
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Our team consists
of six individuals.
There's two of us that are primary
care sports medicine physicians.
And then four sports medicine
trained orthopaedic surgeons.
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90% of people who injure
themselves do not need surgery.
And as a result, I feel that
a primary care sports medicine
physician is a great
person to start with.
Basically, we can get
patients in very quickly for
the initial evaluation.
We can order any imaging studies,
we can even prescribe treatment.
Particularly since 90% of
them do not require surgery.
But if somebody does need surgery,
we work closely with our
orthopaedic colleagues, and
we can seamlessly transition them to
one of our surgeons where they can
get the appropriate care to
have them return to sport.
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I would say the most common
are muscle strains, and
then ligament sprains by far.
It varies with the different athlete
or even participant that we see.
For example with runners, many times
they'll have overuse injuries,
and that will involve injuries to
their knees or their foot and ankle.
In contrast,
if you have like a thrower or
somebody who plays softball or
baseball, you'll find more elbow or
shoulder injuries, either
the rotator cuff or the labrum.
So it really is dependent on
what activity they do, and
the type of injury they get.
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As we discussed earlier,
we see more than just athletes.
We see any active individuals.
So that could be your
neighbor who is a runner,
who is training for 5000,
10000, half mile, or marathon.
See a lot of individuals who
are active in going to gym,
lifting weights.
People who are involved
in CrossFit and
other BodyPump,
some of the boot camps.
So, it's a wide spectrum
of patients, and
not necessarily those who
have to play a sport, but
people who do things individually in
order for their health and fitness.
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An annual physical
characteristically is performed by
a family physician,
a pediatrician, or a internist.
And basically what
they're looking is
comprehensive health
of the individual.
They're looking at blood work.
They're looking at making sure
their immunizations are up to date.
Meanwhile a sports physical is
really focused on the athlete,
and really looking at things that,
illnesses or
injuries that they could suffer and
trying to prevent them.
We really look at, medical wise
we look at the cardiac system.
We look at the breathing,
if they have a history of asthma,
we don't want them to be
short of breath on the field.
We also look at previous
injuries that they may have, and
make sure that they have
rehabbed them appropriately.
If not, we come up with a plan that
will ensure that they can kinda
participate throughout the year.
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I think the biggest preventative
measure is patience.
I think that we're in a society
where we're a very much
results-oriented group.
And so what we want is we want
quick fix, quick results.
And I think the key is that
if you start slowly and
you build up, then you will
be able to prevent injury.
Many of the injuries that we do see
are from people who increase their
training load too quickly and then
as a result, they break down and
subsequently put themselves at risk
for even a more serious injury.
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