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Dr. James Randall "Randy" Ramsey has worked with all levels of athletes during his career in sports medicine, but it's a special group that's had his attention lately — those with Olympic ambitions.

The Jackson-based orthopedic surgeon was recently inducted into the United States Olympic Committee's (USOC) Sports Medicine Society and took part in the USOC's most recent sports medicine program. He spent three weeks this past summer serving as a volunteer physician for athletes training at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.

"They're very easy to work with, because they have a vested interest in getting better," Ramsey said. "It's surprising because most of them are just kids — 18 to 24 years old — but they are so in-tune with their bodies and so well-educated about what they need to do."

Ramsey's interest in this population of athletes stems from both his professional and personal passions. An avid cyclist and triathlete himself, he's enjoyed taking care of nontraditional athletes in areas such as track-and-field, swimming, cycling and triathalon competition.

Ramsey, who practices with the Mississippi Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center, came to his specialty through his interests in athletics, coaching and physical therapy. He was an athlete while growing up and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in coaching and teaching from Mississippi State University.
His interaction with a physical therapist then piqued his interest in sports medicine, and he went back to school for an undergraduate degree in physical therapy from the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1988. He practiced for three years while pursuing a PhD in exercise physiology, but ended up instead with a master's degree from the University of Southern Mississippi.
"I was six hours away from getting my PhD when my advisor talked me into going to medical school," he said. "But having that experience and having already worked with patients made medical school easier."

After finishing his medical degree in 1995 at UMC, Ramsey went on to complete a one-year transitional internship at the University of Arkansas for Medical Science, where he also completed his orthopedic surgery residency. He also completed a sports medicine fellowship in 2001 with the Tennessee Orthopaedic Alliance/The Lipscomb Clinic in Nashville.

Today, he is board-certified in orthopedic surgery with a special interest in shoulder surgery.

During the course of his surgical career, being able to incorporate advances in arthroscopic procedures has been key in improving the recovery and rehabilitation process for his patients, Ramsey said. In addition, the past few years have seen the growing use of donated tissues from cadavers and animals in reconstructing the shoulder for normal movement.

"We continue to learn to repair things in the shoulder anatomically more closely to the way God meant for them to work," Ramsey said.

For patients who've experienced a large rotator cuff tear, the use of those tissues as grafts can mean the difference between whether or not an effective surgical repair is possible, he said.

"Now we're able to take tissue donated from, say, a pig's small intestine, put a patch on that area and reinforce it to take tension off of our repair while it heals," Ramsey said. "From human organ donors, we're able to harvest the covering of bones and tendons and use them in other places to help in surgery on people who are still living."

In addition to his surgical practice in Jackson, Ramsey is on track for consideration by the USOC for coverage of programs and events such as the World University Summer and Winter Games and the Pan American Games. Ultimately, through a continued process of evaluation and selection, he'll be eligible to serve as a sports medicine physician for the Olympics in the summer or winter games of 2008-12.

The process has been a long one already, involving a four-year wait on Ramsey's part to merely reach the first round. Several thousand physicians apply each year and out of those, only about 20 are chosen to take part in the first round, he explained.

Through his involvement with the USOC, Ramsey has also gotten involved with the USA Triathlon organization and is slated to cover a long-course triathlon in Richmond, Va., this coming fall.

Among the Olympic athletes he's worked with, the urgency of recovering from injury is on par with that of professional athletes — and sometimes even higher.
"If they're injured, there is someone right behind them in the program who is 98 to 99 percent as good as they are," he said. "That means if they have downtime, most of them will lose their spot."

Staying active in his own personal life, Ramsey cycles 50 to 100 miles per week in addition to competing in triathlons and lifting weights. His busy weeks are capped with a Saturday morning group ride with friends, some of whom will accompany him on a planned 10-day trip this summer to ride nearly 800 miles down the Pacific coast of Oregon and California.

At home, Ramsey and his wife, Stacy, a full-time mother, are parents to two daughters: Melissa, 13, and Laura, 11. Giving both work and family the attention they need has been "a delicate balance" over the years, Ramsey said.

"As a surgeon, there are a lot of times when you're on call and you miss things that people in another kind of practice wouldn't have to," he said. "But we've always tried to make sure that we're both there for the important things, and that one of us is there for everything. Most of the time we do a pretty good job."

Ramsey, a Greenwood native, is a member of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Southern Orthopaedic Association, American College of Sports Medicine, American Medical Association and Mississippi State Medical Association.

He is one of 10 physicians at the Mississippi Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center, established in 1984 to treat orthopaedic problems and athletic injuries with a focus on utilizing the latest technology and guiding patients through rehabilitation to complete recovery. Group members also serve as team physicians for a number of schools and colleges, and take part in ongoing research in sports medicine and general orthopaedic surgery.


June 2007

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