1 of 2
matt marcinkowski
Dr. Michael Milne
2 of 2
scott rovak
Milne on the field assisting Molina during a Cardinals game against the Phillies in 2008.
It’s a Monday morning in late June, and the St. Louis Cardinals are second in the division—but they’re in trouble. Over the weekend, starting pitchers Michael Wacha and Jaime Garcia were both put on the disabled list with shoulder injuries.
Now, the team’s orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Michael Milne, is on the phone with his mentor, world-famous shoulder surgeon Dr. Richard Hawkins. “You always bounce those things off your mentors,” Milne says.
It was the same when he started practicing medicine, after a short stint as a banker. Dr. Dan Cooper, the Dallas Cowboys’ head physician, told Milne, “Do what you do. Don’t do what you don’t do just because you know how to do it.” So Milne specialized in shoulder and knee surgery. “I don’t swing at a lot of pitches,” he says, “because I want to hit all home runs.”
Years ago, while doing a fellowship at the then–Steadman-Hawkins Clinic in Vail, Colo., Milne served as a team physician for the Denver Broncos, Colorado Rockies, and U.S. Ski Team. After moving back to St. Louis, he became head team physician for the St. Louis Bandits Junior A hockey team, De Smet Jesuit High School, and Marquette High School. “It’s great to aspire to be a pro athlete,” he’ll tell student-athletes, “but your chances are better of becoming the team doctor.”
He managed it in 2007, when he joined the Cardinals’ team of physicians. “The best job in America,” he calls it, especially for a kid whose father ushered at Sportsman’s Park. Milne still takes his father to the opening-day game every year. And his dad was there on Father’s Day 2008, when the Philadelphia Phillies’ Eric Bruntlett collided with Yadier Molina at home plate and Milne had to run out on the field for the first (and so far only) time.
Milne sees the players at their most vulnerable and keeps it confidential. He also understands the tremendous pressure put on pitchers: “They draw great paychecks, but their job is not secure, and they are risking career-ending injuries all the time. They’re pushed like they’ve never been pushed in the last 100 years of baseball. No one could ever throw a ball this hard before. That’s why we’re seeing more injuries.”
Even the way that players receive medical care has changed. “It’s a multidisciplinary approach,” Milne explains. An entire team of specialists and Mercy Sports Medicine doctors now cares for the Cardinals. “The days where you see a guy in the training room who examines you and says, ‘OK, here’s what we’re going to do’—we don’t really do that anymore,” Milne says. Instead, several physicians will examine the player and then discuss the best approach at length before proceeding.
Players sometimes visit Milne’s new practice in Creve Coeur, Motion Orthopaedics, where he also sees people injured at work and weekend warriors. The building houses two surgery centers and an MRI facility. Signed Cardinals jerseys—from Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, David Freese, and Molina—hang in the lobby.
Looking to the future, Milne is excited about the promise of surgeries that are less invasive and that use biological products. At the same time, he notes, “the Affordable Care Act is trying to make medicine really generic.” The design of Motion Orthopaedics, he says, is “to go the opposite. Instead of becoming watered-down and delivering less services for the dollar, we wanted to go much more high-end and high-touch. It doesn’t cost more to be centered on the patient, as opposed to the organization.”
He reaches for another baseball analogy: Wainwright. “He’s gone through surgery, but he continues to add new pitches and hone his craft. That’s why they call it ‘practicing medicine.’ We’re continuing to get better and better.”
