It’s good to be back.

That feeling of accomplishment that Carmela Osborne, MD, has seen her patients grasp is something she also is sharing this month. The marathoner is lacing up for her first race after being sidelined for a year due to a knee injury.

Osborne, a board-certified physical medicine and rehabilitation physician with Methodist Spine & Joint in Jackson, spent much of 2010 working through a physical-therapy regimen herself.

“I know what my patients go through,” she said. “If you’ve experienced the limitations and the difficulty of rehab, the goal and desire to get back to normal, it gives you a whole new perspective on your patients.”

At Methodist Spine & Joint, Osborne works with fellow PM&R physician Leon Grigoryev. They collaborate as a team with interventional pain specialists and occupational and physical therapists on the Flowood campus of Methodist Rehabilitation Center.

Osborne came to Jackson in June from Findlay, Ohio, where she worked for the past 10 years at Blanchard Valley Regional Health Center.

At Methodist, she performs outpatient evaluations of patients with back, shoulder and neck pain, joint pain and arthritis, cumulative trauma injuries such as carpal tunnel, sprains and strains, sports-related injuries, complex regional pain syndrome and fibromyalgia. She also works with patients recovering from joint-replacement surgery or fractures and other trauma.

In addition, Osborne specializes in electrodiagnostics, performing tests on a patient’s nervous system to help reveal whether surgery might relieve, for example, a pinched nerve in the neck or back.

“It’s complementary to the MRI in that it gives us different information,” Osborne said. “The two tests together plus the patient’s symptoms can tell us whether the problem is something that will need surgery.”

For both patients and referring physicians, a swift turnaround on test results means an improved ability to plan for the treatment that’s needed.

“I can look at unusual cases for the referring physicians, and I try to provide same-day results,” Osborne said.

Since her arrival, Osborne has begun offering both electrodiagnostics and her assessment services at outlying clinics affiliated with Methodist in Forest, Magee, Louisville and Kosciusko.

“That’s made our services more accessible for patients who have trouble getting all the way to Jackson,” Osborne said. “They may have limitations in transportation or finances. But this way, they’re able to get therapy two or three times a week in their local area and also to meet with me once a month.”

The opportunity to work with patients in the South is in some ways a homecoming for Osborne.

A native of Kentucky, she is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. She completed her PM&R residency at the UK Chandler Medical Center, where she served as chief resident.

The PM&R specialty, also known as physiatry, is one she came to through a family experience. While she was in medical school, her grandmother suffered a stroke and was admitted to a rehabilitation hospital in Lexington, Ky. Osborne witnessed how the rehabilitation process allowed her to regain her independence.

“My grandmother was able to go back and live alone with the aid of modifications and adaptive equipment,” she said. “I thought that was really wonderful.”

After her residency, Osborne spent four years in the U.S. Army, including a one-year internship at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver and three years as a general medical officer at Fort Knox. During her tenure, the four troop medical clinics on base were combined into a single super-clinic, of which Osborne was the officer in charge.

The clinic was served by four doctors seeing some 150 to 200 patients a day, with a pharmacy and physical-therapy center also on site.

“We saw just about every problem you could see over those three years, which gave me a bigger breadth of experience with musculoskeletal issues,” she said.

“It was also a very good learning environment, in that it gave me the skills to manage my own practice, including managing multiple people, taking care of a large volume of patients and making sure the practice is efficient.”

Osborne also appreciated the freedom Army medical service provided to order the tests she needed when she needed them — without having to be concerned about insurance coverage.

“We didn’t have to worry about getting pre-certifications for MRIs,” she said. “We could pretty much do what was needed. If you needed something, then the patient could get it, regardless of his or her ability to pay.”

Osborne received a Meritorious Service Medal from the U.S. Army and stays connected to the military through her husband, Army pilot Capt. James Bell. He joined Osborne in Jackson last October and is preparing for a deployment to Afghanistan this spring.

Military-style discipline has come in handy for them both, as Bell recruited his wife to join him for a running event billed as “the ultimate test of endurance.” The annual Goofy’s Race-and-a-Half Challenge at Disney World includes a half-marathon one day, followed by a full marathon the next.

Osborne began running at age 40 and signed up for the Goofy Challenge as her first race.

“It helps to have a goal to work toward,” said Osborne, whose tally now includes two marathons and eight half-marathons in addition to the one she’s training for this February.

“I decided the half’s were more my speed,” she said.

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