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What is an Ambulatory Surgery Center?

What is an Ambulatory Surgery Center?

by | Feb 25, 2020 | Sports Medicine

We asked our surgical services manager at the Frisco campus Patty Crabb, B.N., B.S., R.N., ACLS, to tell us all about how the services and the facility make it an ambulatory surgery center just right for kids.

Most importantly Crabb says, “We take care of kids as if they were our own.”  

What makes the surgical experience at Scottish Rite for Children unique? Our ambulatory surgery center in Frisco serves our pediatric and adolescent sports medicine, orthopedic and fracture patients in North Texas. Because our services are all focused around treating kids’ muscles, joints and bones, our staff and our facility is too. In fact, the surgery center was designed with help from our pediatric surgery team with our young patients and families in mind.

What is an ambulatory surgery center?  It’s an outpatient setting for surgeries that do not require an overnight stay for recovery. This is best for patients and families to transition to the comfort of their own home as soon as it is medically safe to do so.

What special training does your staff have? All Scottish Rite for Children surgeons are fellowship trained in pediatric orthopedics and many also completed a fellowship in another specialty area. Our surgery staff have many years of experience in pediatric surgery, many with years of experience with our pediatric orthopedic surgeons.

What services do you offer families that come to the ambulatory surgery center? We have a few things that make surgery in a pediatric setting a lot more comfortable for patients and their family.

  • Child Life specialists are staff members with special training to work with children in health care settings. They are available in clinic to help the child understand the procedure and prepare for surgery day. In some cases, they may provide a tour of the surgery center to help a child feel more at ease.
  • Pediatric anesthesiologists at Scottish Rite for Children have focused their clinical and academic attention to caring for children. This means that their procedure and pain management planning and bedside conversations before and after surgery are all child-focused.
  • Comfortable waiting areas including the Ronald McDonald room that is hosted by a volunteer to attend to family needs.
  • Family Services are available to help families navigate the challenges of having a child going through surgery. For some, this may be help with arranging a stay at a nearby hotel or completing an application for our financial assistance program called Crayon Care.

Check out this tour of our ambulatory surgery center led by pediatric orthopedic surgeon Henry B. Ellis, M.D.

CBS: Mission Unstoppable

CBS: Mission Unstoppable

by | Feb 17, 2020 | Press Coverage, Sports Medicine

Division Director of Movement Science Kirsten Tulchin-Francis, Ph.D., puts her skills to great use by influencing the next generation of young women who are interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). As an IF/THEN Ambassador, she is featured in a TV show – Mission Unstoppable on CBS.

We are honored to have staff, like Dr. Kirsten Tulchin-Francis, who not only work each day to fulfill the mission of the hospital but take their talents to be a role model to others!

Watch the full episode here.

Is Your Athlete Getting Enough?

Is Your Athlete Getting Enough?

by | Feb 12, 2020 | Sports Medicine

What is enough?
Your body needs fuel to grow, learn, and perform. Food provides this fuel. You need to change how much you eat depending on what you are doing. You also must be careful to eat enough of the right foods to fuel your body for growing and to perform in your sport.

What happens if you don’t get enough?

  • Time out of sports due to illness and injuries like stress fractures
  • Prolonged recovery from injuries
  • Not growing to full height
  • Not able to build adequate muscle strength
  • Other medical problems that can last a long time

How do you know if you are not getting enough?
Here are some signs that suggest you may need more fuel:

  • Feeling tired a lot
  • Feeling moody
  • Getting injured easily
  • Getting sick often
  • Not improving strength and skills despite effort
  • Decreased performance
  • Losing weight

How do you get enough?
Whether you are hungry or not, eating three meals a day with two to three snacks is a must for active, growing athletes. To be sure you are eating the right foods, mix food groups at each snack, and meal and be sure to eat all food groups each day.

An example of what this may look like:

MEDITERRANEAN LUNCH WRAP RECIPE

Are YOU getting enough?
When you feel healthy and participate in classroom, activities and sports without becoming excessively tired or injured, you’re off to a great start with eating enough and eating well. Keep up the good work!

Our sports medicine team includes a dietitian with a special interest in young athletes. A former figure skater, Taylor Morrison, M.S., R.D., CSSD, L.D., visits with several types of patients in our clinic. Here are some situations where a sports dietitian can help an injured athlete get back to action:

  • History of repeat injuries
  • Restricted diet due to preferences—choice to be vegetarian or due to food allergies
  • Difficulty fueling to meet the demands of training and recovery

Learn more about pediatric sports medicine.

Sports Medicine Team Makes an Impact at Annual Meeting

Sports Medicine Team Makes an Impact at Annual Meeting

by | Jan 30, 2020 | Sports Medicine

Last week, staff from our sports medicine team were in Glendale, AZ for the 7th annual Pediatric Research in Sports Medicine Society (PRiSM) meeting. PRiSM is a unique group of multidisciplinary medical professionals who are devoted to advancing the care for young athletes. The three-day collaborative conference is designed to cultivate relationships among the members and feature advancements in numerous areas of pediatric sports medicine.

With more than ten staff members in attendance, including advanced practice providers, orthopedic surgeons, physicians, physical therapists, biomechanists and research coordinators, Scottish Rite for Children was well-represented throughout the meeting. Selected to present various research projects and serve as moderators, staff had the opportunity to showcase their work and engage in meaningful discussions with other experts in the field. A few of the topics presented included:

Assistant Chief of Staff Philip L. Wilson, M.D., is proud of the team’s involvement. “We have a strong showing at PRiSM each year,” says Wilson. “However, this year, we were represented in almost every session by staff from different departments, which shows our dedication to excellence in every aspect of care for young athletes. PRiSM gives us a great platform to share our knowledge while also giving staff the opportunity to learn from other specialists.”

The team contributed to more than half of the multicenter interest groups who work throughout the year but come together during the annual meeting to brainstorm and discuss the latest findings and progress of projects.

  • Our movement science lab team has made profound progress in establishing protocols to document baseline measurements to aide in projects of interest to the injury prevention group.
  • Sports medicine physician Jane S. Chung, M.D., is a member of the female athlete interest group and the sport specialization group who are both employing surveys to address specific questions.
  • Pediatric orthopedic surgeon Henry B. Ellis, M.D., is the steering committee chair of SCORE – Sports Cohort Outcomes Registry. This effort has already shown very high potential to have major implications in the safety and quality of arthroscopic procedures in youth across the country.
  • Shane M. Miller, M.D., sports medicine physician and concussion expert, is actively involved in a new concussion project that will expand our current understanding and efforts by teaming up with six other pediatric sports medicine programs.

Learn more about the Center for Excellence in Sports Medicine.

Get to Know our Staff: Sophia Ulman, Movement Science Lab

Get to Know our Staff: Sophia Ulman, Movement Science Lab

by | Jan 27, 2020 | Sports Medicine

What is your role at the hospital? What do you do on a daily basis? 
I am the assistant director of the Movement Science Lab (MSL) at the Frisco campus. In our lab, we use motion capture technology to analyze movement patterns of patients and/or athletes. Similar technology is used to create video games and special effects in movies. I love working in the MSL because every day looks different. Some days we get concussion patients who come into the lab the day they are diagnosed to participate in research, or we might see a patellofemoral instability patient who has recently been cleared to return to sport. Other days, I spend my time processing data or writing a research paper. Recently, I have loved mentoring our high school and college interns while they were on winter break. We stay on our toes down in the lab.  
What do you enjoy most about Scottish Rite for Children?
I absolutely love sharing what we do in the lab. We get quite a few tours that come through including students, medical staff and/or community partners. I enjoy describing what motion capture is, how we use it to help our patients and what we are working on in regard to injury prevention for youth athletes.  

What was your first job? What path did you take to get here? How long have you worked here?
My first job was working at a local basketball gym – cleaning the floors, running the concession stand and working the clock/book for games. I worked numerous jobs throughout high school and undergrad, and my favorite job while at Duke University was working for the Sports Information Office, writing stat sheets and transcribing press conference interviews.

My path to Scottish Rite started the summer after my sophomore year when I shadowed one of Dr. Ellis’ surgeries. He was a fantastic resource for me. After sharing my interests in biomedical engineering and biomechanics, he referred me to Dr. Tulchin-Francis. The following summer I had the opportunity to intern in the Movement Science Lab in Dallas, which led to a student position in the K-Lab at Duke Medical Center (Coach K’s Human Performance Lab). In this lab, I helped with biomechanical assessments of professional athletes and sport-specific patient populations. I had the opportunity to work with an extremely experienced and successful medical staff.

These two internships prepared me for my graduate program at Virginia Tech where I completed my Ph.D. in collaboration with the Army Research Lab. My dissertation investigated performance prediction and injury prevention in the military domain using biomechanics. This work was directly related to current sports research and led me back to Scottish Rite for Children. I have been working here since June, and I am super excited for what we have already accomplished and what we have in the works for future research.
 
What’s the coolest or most interesting thing you’re working on right now?
In the Movement Science Lab, we recently started the SAFE Program (Specialized Athletes Functional Evaluation). We are excited to analyze elite athletes’ movements pre-injury to see if there are any movement discrepancies or deficiencies in specialized athletes compared to a multi-sport or non-elite athlete. Additionally, all participants will be participating in injury surveillance for a year after testing, which will be extremely interesting to observe.
 
What are you currently watching on Netflix?
Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez.

Who would you most like to swap places with for a day?
I would love to switch places with one of Coach K’s (Duke University basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski) assistant coaches for a day. In my opinion, he is one of the best coaches in basketball history (or all sports) and an obvious leader in his field. I would love the opportunity to learn from him and pick his brain for a day.

What is a fun or interesting fact about your hometown?
My hometown is Argyle, TX, like the sweater/sock pattern.

What is your favorite thing to do when you’re not working? 
Spending time with family and friends, attending sporting events in the community and running.

Overuse, Overtraining and Burnout: Here’s a Breakdown

Overuse, Overtraining and Burnout: Here’s a Breakdown

by | Jan 9, 2020 | Sports Medicine

Some may think these words can be used interchangeably, but our expert Shane M. Miller, M.D., who cares for young athletes on the sidelines and in the clinic, says otherwise.

What they do have in common is that they are red flags and each needs to be addressed with equal attention. Unfortunately, though one does not always cause the other, an athlete may experience more than one of these because they are related.

Here is a quick description of each:

  • Overuse (Injuries) occur when a body part gets worn out or injured because a motion is repeated over and over without adequate rest and recovery. This happens in many sports, but common examples include knee pain in sports that involve running and jumping, such as soccer or basketball, and shoulder and elbow injuries in sports that involve throwing or overhead activity such as volleyball or baseball. In young and growing athletes, the growth plates are particularly vulnerable to overuse injuries.
  • Overtraining occurs when a high volume or high intensity of training causes a decline in athletic performance. This may occur during regular training, pre-season intensive training, or during high volume competition such as tournaments or post-season playoffs.
  • Burnout occurs when an athlete experiences internal or external pressures that outweigh their motivation to participate. This causes athletes to no longer enjoy participating in their sport, reduces their commitment to training and, in some cases, causes them to quit a sport completely.

Miller warns coaches and parents to be on the lookout for signs and symptoms of these problems in young athletes. Though the list is long, here are a few things to watch for:

  • A sudden or gradual worsening in performance or disinterest in participating in practice or competition.
  • Complaints of pain during or after activity.
  • An expression of a desire to quit.

“If we can stay ahead of these things, we are much more likely to keep children and adolescents involved in sports longer, allowing them to benefit physically, socially and mentally,” says Miller.

Learn more about pediatric sports medicine.