The Sports Docs Podcast

We chat with Dr. Andrea Spiker about hip preservation - starting with femoroacetabular impingement (FAI). Dr. Spiker is dual fellowship trained in sports medicine and hip preservation. She is the Program Director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Orthopedic Surgery Sports Medicine Fellowship Program. Dr. Spiker has published extensively on the topic of hip preservation and was recently named anAJSM editor for hip, so we’re very excited to share her expertise with you!

On Ask the Sports Docs, we answer some of the most common questions we get from our patients and podcast listeners. Today’s conversation focuses on an area of sports medicine that we get asked a lot, despite us being surgeons: “What nonsurgical treatments can I do to rehab my musculoskeletal injury as well as improve my performance and prevent reinjury?”

We dive into the evidence on the following nonsurgical modalities:
✳️ Kinesiotape
✳️ Sports massage
✳️ Acupuncture

On this Overtime episode, we’re diving into a topic that we haven’t discussed before on this podcast — the medico-legal side of sports medicine. Specifically, the malpractice liability exposure for team physicians.

We review an article from the February 2025 issue of AJSM titled “Malpractice Liability Exposure and the Sports Medicine Team Physician: Caring for Professional Athletes in the National Football League, Major League Baseball, and National Hockey League.”

It is a Reboot Special with one of our faves - Dr. Brian Cole! Today’s episode is going to focus on osteochondral allograft transplantation, and specifically how basic science research can and should impact your clinical practice.

Today we’re talking about pickleball – the fastest growing sport in the United States. From 2019- 2021, the number of pickleball players increased from 3.3 to 4.8 million. The reason for the growth of the sport is likely multifactorial, including that it encompasses a wide variety of age ranges, it is easy to understand and it is inexpensive to play.

Today, we’re talking about graft choice for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction, and specifically how that impacts psychological readiness to return to play. Now, we’ve spoken extensively about ACL injury on this podcast.

Today, we’re talking about the use of tranexamic acid or “TXA” for rotator cuff repair surgery. First, what is TXA? If you’re not an arthroplasty surgeon or a traumatologist, you may not be as familiar with this medication. TXA is drug that inhibits the enzymatic breakdown of fibrin blood clots, also known as fibrinolysis. By doing this, TXA stabilizes the thrombi, or blood clots, and thus decreases bleeding.

On this #overtime episode, we’re talking about postoperative rehabilitation after combined medial patellofemoral ligament (MPFL) reconstruction and tibial tubercle osteotomy (TTO) to treat recurrent patellar instability — specifically whether conservative versus accelerated rehab impacts outcomes.

Today’s Ask The Sports Docs is going to focus on a question we get asked a lot: What can I take supplement-wise to improve my healing and outcome after an orthopedic injury or surgery?

As we reflect on an incredible year of growth for our podcast, we’d like to take a moment to thank our amazing listeners, guests and supporters for making this podcast such a success! 

Our podcast has been downloaded in over 60 countries, is in the top 25% of @buzzsprout podcasts and is again ranked in the top sports medicine podcasts 📈

🎙️ We are very excited to see what 2025 has in store!