“HEALED” ATHLETES CRASHING AND BURNING! (Orthopedics This Week)
Athletes Who Frighten the Best Surgeons
When David Altchek takes a phone call from a despondent coach these days, it just may be because a “healed” player crashed and burned. Dr. Altchek is an attending orthopedic surgeon and is the Medical Director for the New York Mets. He tells OTW, “It is really eerie that high level players who have had a full year of recovery after ACL reconstruction of the knee or ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) reconstruction of the elbow are getting reinjured so often. It’s unsettling to think that we have done a solid procedure and that the patient has rehabbed well, and then everything falls apart. Postop, these patients pass all the required milestones easily; then, within several months of intense competition, they reinjure their knee or elbow.”
Dr. Altchek, clinical professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Weil Cornell Medical College, says, “We are now recruiting patients who have ‘failed’—for the knee it is high school, college, and professional athletes. For the elbow it’s college level or professional pitchers. We want to see what kind of similarities there are in these patients. We hypothe...
