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Aug 02, 2022 / Sports Medicine

Share Your Story: A Future Career

Meet James, a patient who was seen by our sports medicine experts. Learn more about his journey below.

Blog written by James.

Growing up, I based much of my identity around two things: school and sports. I put everything I had into both, taking advanced classes and playing baseball, basketball, football, track, soccer … you name it. By the time I reached high school, I had decided that baseball was my sport, and I kept up with year-round training in addition to my coursework. Well, that was until I started feeling some discomfort in my throwing arm.

I had experienced the standard baseball injuries in the past, but I wasn’t prepared when Dr. Ellis and the Sports Medicine team told me that my injury would not improve without surgery. In fact, the condition of my arm was pretty rare; we really didn’t know what we were getting into. It did not take long to find out, though, as the discomfort had grown to pain and inability to throw – surgery it was!

I recovered from surgery just fine, eventually regaining and even improving on my previous arm strength. I went on to be a two-year varsity player on my high school team and even considered playing college ball.

And while I am so appreciative of regaining the ability to throw without pain, the immediate benefit of the process pales in comparison to the love for the medical field that was instilled in me, and why I came to write this story.


Throughout my treatment process, I was amazed at a couple things. First, I couldn’t believe how cool the equipment, treatments and technology were that they used on me. But maybe more importantly, I was amazed at the care put into every minute of my treatment. Whenever I had a question, a doubt or a concern, someone was there for me.

Upon graduating high school and prior to heading to The University of Texas at Austin to major in Biomedical Engineering and Plan II, I reached out to Scottish Rite for a volunteer position. Throughout the past couple of summers, I’ve worked in the Movement Science Lab, where we work with a variety of clinical patients and healthy athletes for motion capture analysis. Now in my fourth summer, I am also working in different areas of clinical research, both exploring issues like mine and interacting with patients in a way that hopefully resembles the care that I received. I can confidently say that my experience as a patient led to my interest in medicine, four summers of exciting work and may lead to a future career path!

I’m set to graduate in the spring, soon after which I plan to attend medical school and find ways to help patients of my own! In my time here, I have been able to learn from both providers and patients, help produce research and do it all surrounded every day by people who have similar interests. I cannot thank Scottish Rite and the team that treated me enough for showing me the value of amazing care and giving me a way to combine both of those pieces of my identity – school and sports – with an avenue for interacting with people and giving back.
 

DO YOU HAVE A STORY? WE WANT TO HEAR IT! SHARE YOUR STORY WITH US.

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