Jonesboro orthopedic surgeons Brian Dickson, Spencer Guinn and Jeremy Swymn have been named medical directors of the St. Bernards Sports Medicine Program.
Sports Medicine presently offers a wide range of services that benefit athletes through a clinic located adjacent to the football stadium on the campus of Arkansas State University. However, portions of the program will move to the new St. Bernards Health & Wellness Institute when that facility opens in the fall of 2011.
“As medical directors, we will work with other members of the sports medicine team to ensure that St. Bernards continues to provide the most comprehensive sports medicine care in this area,” stresses Swymn, adding “that includes care for both injury treatment and injury prevention.”
“The Health and Wellness Institute will become the centerpiece of our Sports Medicine program,” Dickson points out, “allowing us to provide comprehensive care to our athletes in one state-of-the-art facility. They will be able to see their sports medicine surgeon, physical therapist and strength and conditioning trainer in the same setting and often at the same time.”
“With the opening of the Health & Wellness Institute, we will have all the pieces in place to emulate the top sports medicine programs in the country,” Swymn says. And he should know. He trained with Dr. James Andrews at one of the premiere sports medicine programs in the U.S. at the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Ala.
“Our ultimate goal is to make sure our athletes continue receiving cutting edge sports medicine care right here at St. Bernards,” says Guinn.
“All patients benefit regardless of their age or activity level,” he continues. “Sports medicine is at the forefront of pushing people back to activity as soon as safely possible after surgery or injury. We think of this mainly in the context of sports surgery, but joint replacement patients also are recovering much faster mainly secondary to accelerated rehabilitation programs that were influenced by sports medicine surgeons.”
St. Bernards Sports Medicine offers rehabilitative services delivered by clinicians with extensive backgrounds in sports and sports injury rehab. When the new Health & Wellness Institute is complete, many of those services will be delivered in a top notch clinical facility with a fully equipped therapeutic gym, indoor current pool and an isokenetic unit for sports-specific testing. The sports medicine program also includes on-field athletic training coverage for local high school sports programs, annual all-inclusive school sports physicals at no charge to parents, special coaches’ clinics and other educational programs and individualized sports-specific sports performance training.
“If someone thinks of himself as an athlete – no matter what his age – he can benefit from sports medicine,” Dickson says.
The three physicians are partners at Jonesboro Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine. Though their office currently is located at 505 East Matthews, they will relocate their clinic to a suite in the new Health & Wellness Institute when it opens next year.