Episode 09: Sports Medicine, PEDs, and Dream Clinics w/ Dr. Brandon Eck
Dr. Mike Quintans sits down with Dr. Brandon Eck, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine and an avid athlete.
03:00 - Dr. Eck grew up, essentially, on Penn State University’s campus with his parents involved in medicine and athletics on campus. His father was a PSU athletic trainer and his mom was a PSU physical therapist.
04:50 - Brandon got to meet players such as LaVar Arrington, noting that he remembers that his shoulders were wider than his locker. Seeing and knowing players like Kyle Brady and Kerry Collins were the highlight of his childhood.
10:00 - Dr. Eck practices a team approach, including the athlete, to decide what treatment is best for the athlete.
12:06 - Dr. Eck always wanted to play Penn State Football. In high school, he worked on his skills.
14:20 - Dr. Mike Quintans asks Dr. Eck if he had a son, would he let him play football.
17:20 - Dr. Eck believes in late specialization. High performing athletes typically played multiple sports at a younger age. The more you can be exposed to in youth the better.
21:30 - It’s important to have a balance. Too many repetitions of anything can lead to degeneration of a bone, tendon, or ligament.
22:30 - There are a number of ways you can attack stress reduction. There’s sleep stress, mental stress, etc. You might have more leniency with an injury like tendonitis than a concussion. You need adequate water, nutrition, sleep, etc.
28:00 - Medical providers have challenges sometimes with parents overtaking the conversation. It’s helpful to get kids in the room by themselves without the parent. This allows the child to take control of their health without mom or dad around. The bias of mom and dad is very strong.
31:00 - Athletic trainers should have a conversation with parents during the preseason and offer a plan of what will happen if an athlete gets hurt. This avoids parents stressing, sending their child to urgent care, and potentially receiving misdiagnoses. Having a laid out plan defining which sports medicine doctor an athlete should see, for example, takes away the pressure on the parents to find adequate care.
38:20 - Dr. Eck works in concussion management as a traditionally trained sports medicine physician. He also works with general sports medicine management, athletic/non-athletic injuries (joint pain, tendons, ligaments, neck pain, back pain, etc.), and nerve injuries. He has special training in ultrasound-guided injections. He’s also trained as an osteopath where he learned everything a regular MD would but got a little extra anatomy, manipulative techniques, and other osteopathic techniques.
40:45 - Dr. Eck knew that osteopathic medicine was going to be the best way for him to help his patients.
46:14 - Dr. Quintans and Dr. Eck talk about one of Dr. Eck’s passions: cycling. Unfortunately, the sport is linked sometimes with performance-enhancing drugs. Performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) are more to do with the monetization and culture of the sport than the athlete’s character. There are side effects and physical and emotional consequences of using performance-enhancing drugs.
52:50 - Dr. Eck believes that sports physicians being involved in distributing PEDs are very low. Athletes that are taking PEDs are getting them from illegal or 3rd party sources, not a physician or healthcare provider.
56:50 - Dr. Quintans and Dr. Eck talk about their dream clinics. Dr. Eck wants a space where he has on-site physical therapy, 3D cameras, sensors, a sports nutritionist, and sports performance. He’d also love a multi-specialty approach with access to a network of sleep specialists, cardiologists, surgeons, etc.
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