Built for Athletes
During my fellowship at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, I spent my days caring for professional athletes, including players in the New York Mets organization and Division I basketball at St. John's. I now serve as a team physician for Presbyterian College athletics.
What I took from that work was not a set of secrets. Professional athletes do not receive a different kind of medicine. They receive the same medicine, delivered with more attention, more urgency, and a clearer plan. There is no reason a high school pitcher in the Upstate, a marathon runner, or a weekend tennis player should get anything less.
Why seeing a sports medicine specialist is worth your time
Most injuries will eventually be diagnosed correctly by someone. The difference a specialist makes is usually in what happens next.
An athlete needs more than a name for the problem. You need to know whether you can keep playing, what the risk is if you do, how long the recovery will realistically take, and what the plan is to get back without losing the season or the sport. Those questions require someone who sees these injuries every week and understands the demands of your event.
It also matters for the decision that comes before everything else, which is whether this needs surgery at all.
Most injuries do not need surgery
This is the part I wish more athletes heard early.
A large share of what walks into my clinic improves without an operation. Rotator cuff tendinopathy, most hamstring strains, many meniscus tears, the majority of first-time AC joint separations, patellar tendinopathy, and a great deal of elbow and shoulder pain in throwers respond to the right rehabilitation, a thoughtful load adjustment, and time.
The goal of an evaluation is not to find a reason to operate. It is to sort what genuinely needs surgical treatment from what does not, and to be honest with you about which is which. When surgery is the right answer, I will tell you plainly and explain why. When it is not, I will tell you that too.
What we take care of
Shoulder. Rotator cuff injuries, labral tears, shoulder instability and dislocations, AC joint separations, and shoulder pain in overhead athletes. First-time dislocators deserve particular attention, since the right decision for a seventeen year old wrestler is often different from the right decision for a forty year old recreational athlete.
Elbow. UCL injuries in throwers, including both reconstruction and repair with internal brace augmentation, along with valgus extension overload, flexor tendon injuries, and the elbow pain that so often precedes a bigger problem.
Knee. ACL tears, meniscus injuries, cartilage problems, patellar instability, and tendon injuries. We use every graft option for ACL reconstruction and select among them, and whether to add a lateral extra-articular tenodesis, based on your anatomy, your sport, and your risk.
Lower leg and hip. Hamstring and calf injuries, Achilles injuries, and the recurring soft tissue problems that frustrate sprinters, soccer players, and distance runners.
Wrist and hand. Gymnast wrist, distal radial physeal stress injuries in young athletes, and the overuse problems common in weight-bearing upper extremity sports.
Performance is part of the same conversation
Staying healthy and performing well are not separate projects. Most of what protects an athlete also makes them better.
Preparation. A real warmup, meaning progressive and specific to your sport, consistently reduces injury risk across multiple sports. Structured neuromuscular programs have been shown to lower ACL injury rates in female athletes substantially. These are among the best-supported interventions we have, and they cost nothing but time.
Training. How quickly you increase your workload matters more than the absolute amount. The athletes who get hurt are usually the ones who spiked their volume, returned from a layoff too fast, or trained through fatigue. Progressive overload with planned recovery remains the foundation, and strength work belongs in nearly every athlete's week.
Hydration. Arriving at competition already behind is common and avoidable. Drink steadily in the hours beforehand rather than all at once, and pay attention to sodium when you sweat heavily or compete in heat. Urine color is a crude but useful check.
Nutrition. Most athletes I see are undereating relative to what they are asking their bodies to do, particularly protein and total energy. Carbohydrate availability around training matters for performance and for recovery. This is an area where a sports dietitian earns their keep.
Creatine. Creatine monohydrate is one of the few supplements with genuinely strong evidence behind it, with consistent benefit for strength, power output, and training capacity, and a reassuring safety record over decades of study. If you compete in a drug-tested environment, use a third-party certified product. It is still worth discussing with your physician, particularly for younger athletes.
Recovery. Sleep is the recovery intervention with the strongest evidence and the least marketing behind it. Short sleep is associated with higher injury rates in young athletes. Most of the recovery products sold to athletes have thinner support than sleep, consistent nutrition, and planned rest days.
We let the evidence lead
Sports medicine carries a lot of confident advice that has never been tested. My commitment to you is that I will tell you what the research supports, where it is uncertain, and where I am making a judgment call based on experience rather than data.
Come see us
Whether you are recovering from an injury, trying to avoid one, or looking to compete at a higher level, we would be glad to help.
200 C Patewood Drive, Suite 100, Greenville, SC 29615 864-454-7422
This post is for general education and is not medical advice. Please speak with a physician about your own situation.
