MINNEAPOLIS, January 3, 2008—A New York Times article asks whether physicians who are also athletes make the best doctors for other athletes.

One source in the story is University of Minnesota professor of family medicine (and MMA member) William Roberts, M.D., who when he is not doctoring is likely to be running, skiing or sailing.

The article asks whether athletes fare better when their physicians are also athletes.

Roberts told the reporter that, because of his own athletic history, active people sought him out to such an extent that his practice morphed gradually into one made up mostly of athletes.

“They know I like physical activity and I am willing to try to find ways to keep them active,” said, Roberts, a former president of the American College of Sports Medicine.

He told the Times that he recently saw a patient with atrial fibrillation, a heart disorder. The man said other doctors had told him to stop exercising, so he had come to Roberts hoping to hear a different message.

A different message is what he got. Roberts told the man that he could exercise to his heart's content -- just as long as the heart rate stayed within an acceptable range, and as long as he had no chest pain or shortness of breath.

Also quoted was Ronald Davis, M.D., president of the American Medical Association. A doctor who is physically active, Davis told the Times, “is more likely to provide advice on exercise that will be meaningful to patients.”

The best indication of whether athletes should seek athlete-doctors is that the athlete-doctors themselves have athlete-doctors, the article said.

William Roberts said he chose a doctor who is an athlete, and so did his wife, a skier. His own doctor (and fellow MMA member) is David Thorson, M.D., a skier who had been Roberts' partner in private practice.

“I recruited him in the early 1990s after we raced against each other in sailboats,” Roberts said. He has been Thorson’s patient ever since.

Complete Times article