Sports Medicine at BallaratOSM has had a big year: having started just a year ago we are overjoyed to have filled a glaring need for specialist Sports Medicine services in Ballarat and surrounds. It has been a pleasure getting to know our local medical and allied health network and sporting community, and we look forward to working with you even more in the New Year.

A few weeks ago, I had a fall from my bike, leaving me in The Alfred Hospital for three days before a week of inpatient rehabilitation. While I am now home and continuing to improve daily, I am still a few more weeks away from returning to work. I have been overwhelmed by messages of support and best wishes, and I would like to thank all the friends and colleagues for their kind thoughts, and highly calorific snacks!

Osteochondritis Dissecans is a relatively common childhood problem in the knee. The name means bone and cartilage breaking away from the underlying bone. It most commonly heals by itself, but in adults, or adolescents over the age of 14, it seems more likely to break off than to heal. It is less common in girls, but the upper age cutoff for might be lowe

Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine deal with many tendon conditions, both with and without surgery. The non operative group includes tendinopathies (e.g. tennis elbow, non insertional achilles tendonitis, jumpers knee) that often settle with rest/blood or PRP injections and a retraining program.

We have extensive experience with boney deformity correction. The most common is a bow deformity just below the knee – this eventually causes pain on the inner aspect of the knee, and arthritis. If we get to it early enough, correcting the deformity fixes the pain, and either slows or stops the onset of arthritis.