In This Section      
 

Johns Hopkins Medical Experts Available To Comment On Sports Injuries Among Olympians - 07/24/2012

Johns Hopkins Medical Experts Available To Comment On Sports Injuries Among Olympians

Release Date: July 24, 2012

Broadcast interviews via VYVX or SKYPE are available upon request

With the 2012 Summer Olympics taking place July 27 to Aug. 12, the competition for athletic supremacy will be high and carry with it high rates of injury among the world's most elite athletes.

A 2009 study, published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine, showed that while the majority of injuries suffered by athletes during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games were ankle sprains and thigh strains, the study also documented a significant number of bone fractures and dislocations, tendon and ligament ruptures and concussions endured by the competitors. According to the study, 1,055 injuries were reported during the 2008 games, a rate of 96.1 injuries per 1,000 registered athletes. Below is background on faculty physicians from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Departments of Orthopaedics, Neurology, Cardiology and Psychiatry available to comment or brief reporters on injuries that could be sustained by Olympians during the upcoming games in London. The physicians can discuss causes of injury, surgical and non-surgical treatment options, therapy and recovery times.

GENERAL ORTHOPEDIC, SHOULDER AND SPINE INJURIES
Sameer Dixit, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and a sports medicine specialist at Johns Hopkins.

Dixit serves as associate team physician for the Johns Hopkins University Department of Athletics and as a team physician to the Baltimore Orioles (Major League Baseball). Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, Dixit was the interim head team physician for University of California at Berkeley’s 27 athletic teams and was a team physician at UCLA, where he completed a two-year fellowship in primary care sports medicine and also served as a clinical instructor at the medical center. He has published articles in peer-reviewed medical journals and is a member of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM).

Edward G. McFarland, M.D., vice chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and chief of the Division of Adult Orthopaedics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

McFarland is a nationally recognized expert in the diagnosis and treatment of shoulder joint disorders and injuries, including arthritis, rotator cuff injuries and shoulder pain among athletes. He joined Johns Hopkins in 1992, where he created and directed the Johns Hopkins Division of Sports Medicine and Shoulder Surgery before taking on responsibilities as director. He serves as a consulting team physician for both the Johns Hopkins University Department of Athletics and the Baltimore Orioles.

Steve A. Petersen, M.D., associate professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Petersen specializes in shoulder reconstruction as well as shoulder replacement and arthroscopic shoulder surgery. He serves as co-director of the Johns Hopkins Division of Shoulder Surgery and the Shoulder Fellowship Program, and as a team physician for the Baltimore Orioles. Petersen is a member of numerous professional societies, including the American Shoulder and Elbow Society, the European Society for Surgery of the Shoulder and Elbow, and Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. He also serves as assistant editor of the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery.

Lee H. Riley III, M.D., chief of the Ortho Spine Division and associate professor in the Johns Hopkins Department of Orthopaedic Surgery
.

Riley, a nationally recognized leader in the field of spinal surgery, specializes in
cervical spine and adult spinal disorders. He graduated and completed a residency at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research interests include disc degeneration, metastatic disease, vertebroplasty and spine biomechanics. 

Daniel Sciubba, M.D., assistant professor of Neurosurgery, Orthopedic surgery and oncology and director of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery at Johns Hopkins.

Sciubba treats all aspects of spine disease with a focus on surgical treatment of complex spinal reconstructions and spinal tumors. His contributions in clinical outcomes and hospital safety research have earned him multiyear research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. He was recently recognized with the Johns Hopkins Hospital safety award for significant published contributions to improve the safety of neurosurgical care.

TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY (TBI)
Robert D. Stevens, M.D., associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, with appointments in Anesthesiology/Critical Care Medicine, Neurology, Neurosurgery and Radiology.


Stevens is the co-director of an annual Continuing Medical Education (CME) program at Johns Hopkins that focuses on advances in TBI research. The program, consisting of nationally recognized experts in neurology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, neuropsychology, critical care, rehabilitation medicine and trauma surgery, discusses new research on repetitive head injury and neural repair of the brain after trauma.

Jon D. Weingart, M.D., professor of Neurosurgery and
director of the Neurosurgical Operating Room at Johns Hopkins.

Weingart specializes in spinal disorders, such as cervical and lumbar disc disease.

HEART DISEASE
Theodore Abraham, M.D., F.A.C.C., F.A.S.E., a cardiologist and associate professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and director of Johns Hopkins' Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Clinic.


While athletes from around the world are competing in the London Olympics, Abraham will lead a group of Johns Hopkins experts in cardiology and cardiac imaging in an annual event in Baltimore called “Hopkins Heart Hype.” The all-day screening is slated to take place during the National Junior Olympic Track & Field Championships on Sat., July 28, and will examine as many as 6,000 young track and field athletes for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). HCM, considered the number-one killer of athletes under age 30, is a rare and often inherited condition that causes thickening of the heart muscle. It often progresses without symptoms, so missed diagnoses of heart conditions result in a disproportionate number of deaths among athletes — especially young African-Americans, who have an even higher-than-usual risk for the disorder.

Roger Blumenthal, M.D., professor of medicine in the Department of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology and director of preventive cardiology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.


An avid amateur athlete and a frequent consultant to athletes at risk for heart disease, Blumenthal was the principal developer of the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease, and is the director of preventive cardiology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is a member of the official national spokesperson panel for the American Heart Association (AHA) and a member of AHA’s committee on exercise, cardiac rehabilitation, and prevention.

Blumenthal is on the medical advisory board of the Sister-to-Sister Foundation, which is dedicated to promoting cardiovascular health in women, chairs the American College of Cardiology Committee on Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, and serves on the editorial boards of Today in Cardiology, Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, the Journal of Women's Health, and Cardiology Review. He also is senior editor of Preventive Cardiology.

Wendy Post, M.D., M.S., associate professor of medicine in the Department of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Division of Cardiology and a cardiologist at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease and the Echocardiography Laboratory
.

Although heart disease is commonly thought of as a man’s problem, it is by far the leading cause of death among women as well, often striking in later decades than in men and the cause of one in four female deaths. Heart disease affects men and women in different ways, and “classic” symptoms are often missing or ignored in women.  Among them: shortness of breath, fatigue and back pain. Post can discuss the latest risk factors, early warning symptoms, research, preventive strategies and treatment options tailored for women. 

Julius Cuong Pham, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of Emergency Medicine and Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
.

Pham led a study recently reported online that shows that death risk for marathoners remains low during a marathon or soon after a marathon, despite a surge in the number of runners finishing the punishing 26.2-mile races. Pham, a three-time marathoner himself, and his colleagues found that in a 10-year period (2000-2009), 28 people died during a marathon or in the 24 hours following a marathon, most of them men. Half of those who died were over age 45, and all but one in the over-45 group died of heart disease. For younger runners, the cause of death varied widely and included cardiac arrhythmia and hyponatremia, the latter which can be caused from drinking excessive amounts of water.

PSYCHIATRY
Vani A. Rao, M.D., associate professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
.

Rao is co-director of an annual Continuing Medical Education (CME) program at Johns Hopkins that focuses on advances in TBI research.  She is the section director of the Bayview Neuropsychiatry and Geriatric Psychiatry unit. She has published extensively on the psychiatric aspects of brain injury.