Orthopedic Fellowship in Sports Medicine
The University of Wisconsin Athletic Department
The UW Health Sports Medicine Center
Fellowship Responsibilities
Faculty
Benefits
Application Guidelines
Thank you for your interest in the Sports Medicine Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin. The UW is an excellent place to master sports medicine: we offer exceptional facilities, a large, diversified faculty, plenty of hands-on clinical experience, and one of the best collegiate athletic departments in the nation. The training you receive here will give you the knowledge and skills you need to excel in the field, whether you go on to become a team physician, a sports medicine orthopedic specialist, or a clinical or basic science researcher. The fellowship is one year in length running from August 1st trhough July 31st.
The University of Wisconsin Athletic Department
As part of the NCAA’s Big Ten conference, the University of Wisconsin is proud to have some of the most promising young athletes in the country. Badger football, basketball, ice hockey, wrestling - more than 20 sports in all - make UW an exciting place for any sports enthusiast.
The UW Athletic Department provides excellent training facilities for those athletes at the Dave McClain Athletic Facility. Built in 1988, the McClain Center ranks among the top indoor practice and training sites in the nation. The 166,264-square-foot facility has a 90-yard artificial surface field with a ceiling high enough for kicking, on-site X-ray machines, locker rooms, a weight room, a theater-style auditorium, classrooms, and a players’ lounge.
More training and practice sites are located at Camp Randall Stadium, the Camp Randall Memorial Sports Center (The Shell), the Nielsen Tennis Stadium, the Goodman Diamond Softball Complex, the Natatorium and Southeast Recreational Facility (SERF), the Kohl Center and the Wisconsin Boathouse. Competition venues include Camp Randall Stadium, the Kohl Center, and the Wisconsin Field House.
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The UW Health Sports Medicine Center
The nationally recognized University of Wisconsin Health Sports Medicine Center provides evaluation, treatment, and rehabilitation of sports-related injuries, as well as injury prevention and rehabilitation seminars for coaches and athletic trainers. Other services available at the Sports Medicine Center include physical therapy, a state-of-the-art fitness center, an aquatic activity center, an athletic training outreach program, and a health promotion outreach program.
The medical staff at the Sports Medicine Center consists of four orthopedic surgeons, two pediatricians, a family medicine physician who specializes in sports injuries, 12 certified athletic trainers, three exercise physiologists and a specialized sports physical therapy staff. The Center is located in a 84,000-square-foot building in the University Research Park; also located there is the Family Medicine Clinic, the Spine Center and a musculoskeletal magnetic resonance imaging facility.
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Fellowship Responsibilities
The University of Wisconsin accepts one sports medicine fellow per year, whose responsibilities are focused in four distinct areas:
- Clinical Care You will have the opportunity to examine and treat hundreds of patients in the Sports Medicine Clinic. You will also receive extensive exposure to a variety of sports medicine-related surgical techniques.
- Athletic Department Support By providing supervised and unsupervised game coverage for the University Wisconsin Athletic teams, you will learn how to examine, evaluate, and treat acutely injured athletes.
- Education Throughout your fellowship, you will broaden your academic horizons by participating in and leading a number of conferences, lectures and other educational sessions.
- Research You will have numerous opportunities to participate in sports medicine-related research. You will also receive support from the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation and the Department of Surgery in order to meet the fellowship’s research and publication requirements.
Clinical Care
The fellow is an integral part of the outpatient clinical facility at the UW Sports Medicine Center. Together with the attending physician, a physical therapist, and in some cases, an Orthopedic Surgery resident, the fellow is taught how to perform a comprehensive orthopedic examination of sports-related musculoskeletal injuries. Patients who are referred to the clinic’s physical therapy department are seen within one to two weeks, making it easy for the fellow to observe the therapists and gain an understanding of the rehabilitation process.
All inpatient and outpatient surgical procedures are performed at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics. The sports medicine fellow gains substantial experience in knee and shoulder reconstruction, as well as in general arthroscopic surgery of the knee, shoulder, ankle, and elbow.
An attending physician scrubs on all cases and assists the fellow during surgery. In addition to hands-on supervision during the case, sports medicine surgical instruction also includes preoperative discussion, where the fellow and the attending discuss surgical options and appropriate procedures, and postoperative clinic visits, where the fellow learns rehabilitation protocols and evaluates the final results.
Athletic Department Support
The sports medicine fellow helps provide medical services for all University of Wisconsin varsity men’s and women’s athletic teams. This includes preparticipation physicals and daily evaluation of over 800 athletes in a variety of sports, including football, basketball, ice hockey, soccer, crew, and volleyball. Clinics, staffed by attending physicians and/or the fellow, are also held in the training room two to four nights per week, depending on the season.
The fellow is the primary orthopedic consultant for crew and wrestling. He or she also assists in the coverage of all major sports (football, basketball, and hockey), and travels with the football team to all regular season games and bowl games. Game coverage allows the fellow to receive hands-on experience evaluating athletes and managing on-the-field athletic injuries.
Education
The conference schedule for the Sports Medicine Fellowship includes a monthly journal club, a bimonthly fellow lecture (mini-talk), individual case presentations, and staff-directed lectures on subjects such as radiology, biomechanics, and rehabilitation.
The mini-talk is designed to give the fellow experience making a short presentation on a particular sports medicine-related subject. These are formal presentations in which the fellow will be expected to lead a discussion, revise existing handouts, and generate an up-to-date bibliography on the subject matter. After selected mini-talks, assigned individuals present interesting cases to the group for discussion of diagnostic and treatment issues.
Research
The fellow is required to participate in clinical or laboratory research one to two days per week, completing at least one project for publication by the end of the fellowship. Ongoing collaborative projects with the University of Wisconsin Veterinary School, the Department of Physical Education, and our Bioengineering and Exercise Physiology Laboratories provide unlimited research opportunities.
The fellow has the latitude to select research projects that specifically interest him or her; in order to promote education in the biomechanics and physiology of exercise and associated injuries, the fellow interacts one-on-one with the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation’s bioengineer, biochemist, and exercise physiologist. Financial support for these projects is readily available through the Department’s Research and Development Fund. In addition, the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation provides overall editorial and statistical support as needed throughout the research project.
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Faculty
Ben K. Graf, MD, Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation
Dr. Graf, an associate professor, is the medical director and the head team physician for the UW Athletic Department. He received his medical degree and his residency training at UW. He completed a fellowship in sports medicine at the Southern California Center for Sports Medicine in Long Beach, California, and one in AO trauma at the Inselspital in Bern, Switzerland.
Dr. Graf’s special interests include sports-related injuries of the extremities, arthroscopy, and reconstructive surgery of the knee. He is a master instructor at the Arthroscopy Association of North America’s (AANA) Learning Center, and is very active in Academy Courses and the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM).
John F. Orwin, MD, Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation
Dr. Orwin, an associate professor, is the director of the Sports Medicine fellowship and a team physician for the UW Athletic Department. He graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School, spent his residency at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, and completed a sports medicine fellowship at the Southern California Orthopedics Institute in Los Angeles.
His special interest is arthroscopic reconstructive surgery of the shoulder. Dr. Orwin is a frequent instructor at the AANA’s Learning Center and was one of the developers of the AANA Residency Course in Arthroscopy.
Gregory L. Landry, MD, Department of Pediatrics
Dr. Landry, a professor, is the head medical physician for the UW Athletic Department. He graduated from Indiana University School of Medicine, and completed a residency and fellowship at the UW. Dr. Landry has special interests in pediatric sports medicine (both orthopedic and nonorthopedic aspects), iron deficiencies in athletes, and preparticipation evaluations.
David Bernhardt, MD, Department of Pediatrics
Dr. Bernhardt, a professor, is a team physician for the UW Athletic Department. He graduated from the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, and completed his pediatrics residency and the Nathan Smith Fellowship in Sports and Adolescent Medicine at the UW Hospital and Clinics. His special interests include the female athlete, runners, and pediatric and adolescent athletes.
Ray Vanderby, PhD, Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation
Dr. Vanderby, an associate professor, directs the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation’s Biomechanics laboratory. He received his PhD in theoretical and applied mechanics from Purdue University. His research includes evaluation of normal and healing connective tissues, and how these tissues respond to changes in their mechanical environment.
Kathleen E. Carr, MD, Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation
Dr. Carr is an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and a team physician for the UW Athletic Department. She is a Madison native and graduate of the University of Wisconsin earning a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Physiology in 1993 and M.D. in 1997. She completed a residency in family medicine at the University of Michigan in 2000 and then returned to Madison for the Nathan Smith Fellowship in Sports and Adolescent Medicine. Dr. Carr’s special interests in primary care sports medicine include prevention and treatment of sports-related injuries in female athletes, injuries in dancers, and mental health issues of athletes.
James S. Keene, MD, Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation
Dr. Keene is a professor in the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. He founded the spinal cord injury program at UW and has been involved as a member of the board of directors of the American Spinal Injury Association since 1979. He also served as the team physician and team orthopedic surgeon for many UW-Madison varsity athletic teams and was the head team physician from 1989-1994. He is the past president of the Federation of Spine Associations. His current research interest is focused on the value of various imaging techniques in sports medicine, as well as hip arthroscopy.
Geoffrey S. Baer, MD, PhD, Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation
Dr. Baer is an assistant professor in the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and a team physician for the UW Athletic Department. He recently joined the department after completing medical and graduate school at Vanderbilt University, residency at the University of Virginia, and a fellowship in Sports Medicine and Shoulder Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. His clinical interests include arthroscopic surgery of the knee and shoulder and his research interest include treatment options for articular cartilage and meniscal injuries.
Benefits
Stipends
Stipends for house officers at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics are revised annually and are kept close to the median figures for other university and midwestern hospitals. The yearly stipend for the Sports Medicine fellowship is based on the PGY-6 level of training.
In addition to the yearly stipend, the fellow will receive funding during his or her fellowship year to attend a scientific meeting pertaining to arthroscopy and/or sports medicine and to purchase books.
Leave Policies
Each fellow receives three weeks of vacation and one week of meeting time during the fellowship.
Evaluations
Evaluations of the fellow and fellowship are performed on a semiannual basis. At this time both the fellow and attending physicians complete evaluation forms; these forms are then formally discussed. Through this process, problem areas can be identified early and dealt with as necessary.
Benefits
Information about benefits may be found on the GME Website.Top of the page
Application Guidelines
Applicants must have completed an accredited Orthopedic surgery residency program, be board-eligible in Orthopedics, and be fully licensed in the State of Wisconsin prior to starting the program.
Applications are accepted through the San Francisco Match Program. To receive more information or an application for the Sports Medicine Fellowship, please contact: our Education Office at 608-263-0888 or richardson@ortho.wisc.edu
We look forward to hearing from you!
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First published: 07/15/04 Last updated: 07/04/09
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