Fairview opens new clinic near campus

A new clinic that opened this week near the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus will cater to athletes and the physically active, offering treatments for an array of bone, muscular and joint problems.
The Fairview Sports and Orthopedic Care-Minneapolis clinic, located on the ground level of the University Village apartment complex a few blocks from TCF Bank Stadium, is staffed with doctors, physical therapists and athletic trainers.
The seven doctors who will rotate through the clinic are members of the University of Minnesota Physicians and work in the sports medicine division of the University’s department of family medicine and community health. As many as five physical therapists will rotate through the clinic as well.
While Boynton Health Service already offers on-campus care to students, it’s important that they have access to providers that specialize in the athletics arena, Suzanne Hecht, the clinic’s medical director and assistant professor of family medicine and community health, said.
“If you happen to be a very high-level track and field athlete, your primary care physician can get things started but doesn’t really understand the requirements of your sport and the demands of your training,” she said. “That’s where we come in handy.”
Most of the doctors on staff are also team physicians for Gophers athletes and generally treat players in their training rooms.
The new site will combine sports medicine with orthopedic physician services, tending to a variety of musculoskeletal conditions that affect those active in sports or recreational athletics, Scott Kulstad, system director for Fairview Orthopedics, said.
“The special sauce is really that collaboration and the integration of physical therapy with our physicians,” he said. “When our patients come in, they’re getting coordinated, seamless care.”
The location will also treat bone fractures, osteoporosis, nutrition, lacerations, diabetes, concussions or any medical issue associated with being active.
Most of the clinic’s physical therapists come from the former Institute for Athletic Medicine-Minneapolis clinic in the Riverside Park Plaza building, which has relocated into the new clinic next door to Fairview Children’s Clinic.
Fairview’s University Orthopedics Therapy Center, which offers similar physical therapy services, is located across the street from the former Riverside Athletic Medicine clinic.
“We’ve created more geographic distribution for our patients,” Kulstad said. “Instead of having two sites on either side of the street, we now have two sites, one on either side of the river.”
FSOC runs five similar clinics throughout the state, located in Burnsville, Blaine, Elk River, Maple Grove and Wyoming.
Kulstad said he expects patients of all ages and backgrounds will visit the clinic, including high school, intramural and recreational athletes or senior citizens who want to remain active while managing physical ailments such as shoulder or knee pain.
Not everyone who comes to the clinic needs to play a competitive sport, Hecht said.
“We like to think that every patient is an athlete, they just haven’t been discovered yet sometimes,” she said. “We can put exercise as a medicine and a treatment for a lot of things that people have.”
Patients can generally schedule same-day or next-day appointments at the clinic, which will eventually extend its hours in the fall to include evenings and weekends, Hecht said.
“The University and its neighborhood are very active people,” Robert Johnson, a physician at the clinic and family medicine and community health professor, said. “We’re just trying to make sure we can offer the best care, hopefully, for their exercise and musculoskeletal needs so we can keep them active and not have them limited.”