Title: Getting to Know ... Gary Levengood
Description: ....Force team physician
Description: ....Force team physician
IF Fan - February 23, 2008 06:47 PM (GMT)
2/15/2008 12:01:00 AM Gwinnett Daily Post
Staff Photo: Jason Braverman
Georgia Force team physician Gary Levengood recently opened Sports Medicine South in Lawrenceville.
Getting to Know ... Gary Levengood
Gary Levengood, 51, is the team physician for both the Arena Football League's Georgia Force and the Atlanta Silverbacks soccer team. The Lilburn resident, who has sons John (16), Eric (15), Mark (14) and daughter Bryn (9) with his wife Lisa, recently opened Sports Medicine South in Lawrenceville. In this latest installment of "Getting to Know..." the Shamrock High School graduate talks with sports editor Will Hammock on a variety of topics, ranging from bad sports injuries to his duties at Brookwood to med school.
WH: You've been the Georgia Force team physician for five years. So how excited were you to have the Force come back to Gwinnett?
GL: I was extremely excited. It will be good for them because it's a more comfortable surrounding for them to play in. And I'm excited to be back in Gwinnett because it's where the majority of my practice is. It's been predominantly a Gwinnett team, Gwinnett has supported it more than anybody else. It'll be a much better atmosphere for people to be able to tailgate, that kind of stuff. I think we'll sell out here. The inside will be a better atmosphere and noisy. When we go to Orlando, it's loud when they fill that thing up. It's really tough on the other team.
WH: How do you feel about the Arena Football League? Did you know much about it before the Force?
GL: I knew nothing. Since I've been the team doctor the league's made a bunch of changes. By the time I learn the rules they change them.
WH: With all that tackling up against the boards in the AFL, it seems like it could set up for some gruesome injuries? Have you seen some bad ones?
GL: I have. The worst one was to the coach (Doug Plank). One of our receivers came over the top into the box, coach wasn't looking and took it straight in the face. It was in Tampa. I put 60 stitches in his face and he had a concussion. That's probably the worst one. The walls are fairly padded and guys have a good idea where the walls are so I haven't seen wall-related injuries. We mostly see injuries related to the turf, knees and ankles.
WH: What are the worst sports injuries you've seen in your career?
GL: C-spine injuries are the ones we worry most about. Fortunately the ones I've seen are minor. The worst was probably my first year at Brookwood (in 1996). One of my players, a coach there (Matt Williams), was a small guy that ended up at the bottom of a pile. He ended up with a punctured lung. He came out and wasn't too bad. He went in for a play and came out again.
He was having a hard time breathing. I listened to him with my stethoscope, called his parents down and said that you need to take him to the emergency room right now. Sure enough he had a pneumothorax.
WH: Have you had many sports-related injuries yourself?
GL: All I had was my ACL, just a lot of nicks and bruises. It wasn't until I tore my ACL that I had a major one. That was enough to convince me I needed to go into medicine to do a better job than he did on me.
WH: You recently opened Sports Medicine South in Lawrenceville. What excites you about that?
GL: I think the biggest thing is it's an opportunity for me to direct the type of care I'm going to do. I don't have to go through administration. I can do things through my years of experience that I feel is the best way to treat patients. Corporate medicine is like corporate America, there's a lot of excess in it. I think you can deliver more efficient care in a smaller practice.
I'm excited by the fact I've got Curt Bazemore here doing physical therapy. We can have one-on-one contact, I can do surgery and I can go right there and talk to him. I brought over Diana (Dean) over, my PA, she's been me with me seven or eight years. Patients really seem to like her. She's an extra set of eyes and ears for me.
WH: When you got involved with serving as the team doctor for Brookwood football, did you see it lasting this long (1996 to the present)?
GL: I've kind of stayed places I go. I tend to be pretty loyal to people. I think the nice thing about Brookwood, Coach (Dave) Hunter stayed awhile and once there was a changeover with Mark (Crews), he had been there a long time, too. It was not much of a change. It's almost like a family out there. Our wives get together for dinner after games. My son's out there now, playing JV. It's a great program. It's been a privilege to be associated with them.
WH: Your oldest son is in the Brookwood district, but the rest are in the Parkview district. How does that work? A little family rivalry?
GL: No, because I take care of as many Parkview kids as Brookwood kids. We're in that neighborhood. Our kids loved growing up there. Jon started playing at Mountain Park in rec ball, he played eighth grade and ninth grade at Greater Atlanta (Christian) and now I moved him over to Brookwood. I guess he gets along with (his siblings) since none of the other ones play football.
WH: You played pro soccer with the Georgia Generals before your knee injury, then you taught for two years in DeKalb before med school. Why was that?
GL: What happened was my knee was torn up and I needed a job. There's not a big call for people with a bachelor of science in biology other than teaching and medical school. A friend told me to substitute teach, so I did a lot of long-term subbing. It worked out well. The next year I taught science and math full-time. But I had decided to go to medical school. At the time I was taking the MCAT, working on a master's, working on getting things ready for medical school. But I enjoy teaching, I still teach with the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine here.
WH: What was your favorite part of med school? How about your least favorite?
GL: Medical school's a lot of information, especially the first two years. It's a lot of information, basically giving you facts to spit out on a test. The problem is everything you learn the first two years of medical school is wrong, except for anatomy. The technology is changing so much, everything we learn has gone through tremendous changes. I look back at the stuff I was taught in medical school, that was just way of thinking back then and lot of that has changed.
As you go through your career you have to stay up with information. Information's exploding at a record pace. If you're not a life-long learner, you fall behind. That's what medical school teaches you to do, you get in the habit of soaking up that information. The enjoyable part of medical school is you finally get to see patients, help patients.
WH: Is there still a surgery that amazes you? One that you really get a kick out of seeing or performing?
GL: I still enjoy doing ACL reconstruction, just because it comes back home for me. I wasn't really able to play professionally after my ACL, but I've had quite a few of my patients go on and play at a much higher level. It's very satisfying to fix their knees and give them hope to perform at the level they're at and maybe push people beyond where they were performing. And I can relate to the athletes when it comes to ACLs and understand their emotions.
It's interesting the last 12 years, we're doing more and more with smaller incisions and a lot more with computers with navigation. It's interesting to me that we can use a computer to make decisions. Things we had to guess on before. I do a procedure called high tibial osteotomy to straighten out bow legs. I had to guess before on the angle. Now a computer can create the right angle in the operating room.
I was the first one in Gwinnett to do the Birmingham hip replacement that people in my ages are needing. We're able to take somebody who is young, in their 40s and 50s, and allow them to be active again. Anything I can do that allows people to participate in things they love to do is very fulfilling.
WH: What do you do in your spare time?
GL: I hunt. Mostly birds. I've traveled to Argentina twice, Mexico three or four times, to go bird hunting. I've gone to Canada fishing a couple of times. I play tennis with my wife in the ALTA league and I spend a lot of time at high school events, college events, professional events. I visited one of my friends in North Carolina and he had tickets to a pro hockey game. I told him, 'No, I'm on vacation.' I cover about 200 games a year so I didn't want to see a game when I was on vacation.
Staff Photo: Jason Braverman
Georgia Force team physician Gary Levengood recently opened Sports Medicine South in Lawrenceville.
Getting to Know ... Gary Levengood
Gary Levengood, 51, is the team physician for both the Arena Football League's Georgia Force and the Atlanta Silverbacks soccer team. The Lilburn resident, who has sons John (16), Eric (15), Mark (14) and daughter Bryn (9) with his wife Lisa, recently opened Sports Medicine South in Lawrenceville. In this latest installment of "Getting to Know..." the Shamrock High School graduate talks with sports editor Will Hammock on a variety of topics, ranging from bad sports injuries to his duties at Brookwood to med school.
WH: You've been the Georgia Force team physician for five years. So how excited were you to have the Force come back to Gwinnett?
GL: I was extremely excited. It will be good for them because it's a more comfortable surrounding for them to play in. And I'm excited to be back in Gwinnett because it's where the majority of my practice is. It's been predominantly a Gwinnett team, Gwinnett has supported it more than anybody else. It'll be a much better atmosphere for people to be able to tailgate, that kind of stuff. I think we'll sell out here. The inside will be a better atmosphere and noisy. When we go to Orlando, it's loud when they fill that thing up. It's really tough on the other team.
WH: How do you feel about the Arena Football League? Did you know much about it before the Force?
GL: I knew nothing. Since I've been the team doctor the league's made a bunch of changes. By the time I learn the rules they change them.
WH: With all that tackling up against the boards in the AFL, it seems like it could set up for some gruesome injuries? Have you seen some bad ones?
GL: I have. The worst one was to the coach (Doug Plank). One of our receivers came over the top into the box, coach wasn't looking and took it straight in the face. It was in Tampa. I put 60 stitches in his face and he had a concussion. That's probably the worst one. The walls are fairly padded and guys have a good idea where the walls are so I haven't seen wall-related injuries. We mostly see injuries related to the turf, knees and ankles.
WH: What are the worst sports injuries you've seen in your career?
GL: C-spine injuries are the ones we worry most about. Fortunately the ones I've seen are minor. The worst was probably my first year at Brookwood (in 1996). One of my players, a coach there (Matt Williams), was a small guy that ended up at the bottom of a pile. He ended up with a punctured lung. He came out and wasn't too bad. He went in for a play and came out again.
He was having a hard time breathing. I listened to him with my stethoscope, called his parents down and said that you need to take him to the emergency room right now. Sure enough he had a pneumothorax.
WH: Have you had many sports-related injuries yourself?
GL: All I had was my ACL, just a lot of nicks and bruises. It wasn't until I tore my ACL that I had a major one. That was enough to convince me I needed to go into medicine to do a better job than he did on me.
WH: You recently opened Sports Medicine South in Lawrenceville. What excites you about that?
GL: I think the biggest thing is it's an opportunity for me to direct the type of care I'm going to do. I don't have to go through administration. I can do things through my years of experience that I feel is the best way to treat patients. Corporate medicine is like corporate America, there's a lot of excess in it. I think you can deliver more efficient care in a smaller practice.
I'm excited by the fact I've got Curt Bazemore here doing physical therapy. We can have one-on-one contact, I can do surgery and I can go right there and talk to him. I brought over Diana (Dean) over, my PA, she's been me with me seven or eight years. Patients really seem to like her. She's an extra set of eyes and ears for me.
WH: When you got involved with serving as the team doctor for Brookwood football, did you see it lasting this long (1996 to the present)?
GL: I've kind of stayed places I go. I tend to be pretty loyal to people. I think the nice thing about Brookwood, Coach (Dave) Hunter stayed awhile and once there was a changeover with Mark (Crews), he had been there a long time, too. It was not much of a change. It's almost like a family out there. Our wives get together for dinner after games. My son's out there now, playing JV. It's a great program. It's been a privilege to be associated with them.
WH: Your oldest son is in the Brookwood district, but the rest are in the Parkview district. How does that work? A little family rivalry?
GL: No, because I take care of as many Parkview kids as Brookwood kids. We're in that neighborhood. Our kids loved growing up there. Jon started playing at Mountain Park in rec ball, he played eighth grade and ninth grade at Greater Atlanta (Christian) and now I moved him over to Brookwood. I guess he gets along with (his siblings) since none of the other ones play football.
WH: You played pro soccer with the Georgia Generals before your knee injury, then you taught for two years in DeKalb before med school. Why was that?
GL: What happened was my knee was torn up and I needed a job. There's not a big call for people with a bachelor of science in biology other than teaching and medical school. A friend told me to substitute teach, so I did a lot of long-term subbing. It worked out well. The next year I taught science and math full-time. But I had decided to go to medical school. At the time I was taking the MCAT, working on a master's, working on getting things ready for medical school. But I enjoy teaching, I still teach with the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine here.
WH: What was your favorite part of med school? How about your least favorite?
GL: Medical school's a lot of information, especially the first two years. It's a lot of information, basically giving you facts to spit out on a test. The problem is everything you learn the first two years of medical school is wrong, except for anatomy. The technology is changing so much, everything we learn has gone through tremendous changes. I look back at the stuff I was taught in medical school, that was just way of thinking back then and lot of that has changed.
As you go through your career you have to stay up with information. Information's exploding at a record pace. If you're not a life-long learner, you fall behind. That's what medical school teaches you to do, you get in the habit of soaking up that information. The enjoyable part of medical school is you finally get to see patients, help patients.
WH: Is there still a surgery that amazes you? One that you really get a kick out of seeing or performing?
GL: I still enjoy doing ACL reconstruction, just because it comes back home for me. I wasn't really able to play professionally after my ACL, but I've had quite a few of my patients go on and play at a much higher level. It's very satisfying to fix their knees and give them hope to perform at the level they're at and maybe push people beyond where they were performing. And I can relate to the athletes when it comes to ACLs and understand their emotions.
It's interesting the last 12 years, we're doing more and more with smaller incisions and a lot more with computers with navigation. It's interesting to me that we can use a computer to make decisions. Things we had to guess on before. I do a procedure called high tibial osteotomy to straighten out bow legs. I had to guess before on the angle. Now a computer can create the right angle in the operating room.
I was the first one in Gwinnett to do the Birmingham hip replacement that people in my ages are needing. We're able to take somebody who is young, in their 40s and 50s, and allow them to be active again. Anything I can do that allows people to participate in things they love to do is very fulfilling.
WH: What do you do in your spare time?
GL: I hunt. Mostly birds. I've traveled to Argentina twice, Mexico three or four times, to go bird hunting. I've gone to Canada fishing a couple of times. I play tennis with my wife in the ALTA league and I spend a lot of time at high school events, college events, professional events. I visited one of my friends in North Carolina and he had tickets to a pro hockey game. I told him, 'No, I'm on vacation.' I cover about 200 games a year so I didn't want to see a game when I was on vacation.