By Kaitlin Candelaria
Sara Gould’s first exposure to sports medicine wasn’t necessarily a good one. The former cross-country runner had to end her college running career after finding out she had stress fractures.
“That was my first experience and it was terrible,” she said, laughing. “But after the doctor told me I couldn’t run for the rest of the season, he said I could come shadow him anytime I wanted. That kind of peaked my interest.”
Now a sports medicine and emergency room physician, Gould moved to Birmingham with her husband two years ago. When she’s not juggling her concussion clinic at Children’s of Alabama, working in the emergency room at UAB Hospital or spending time with her toddler, Gould moonlights as a traveling sports medicine physician for the NBA.
“Every year, the NBA does global exhibition games,” Gould explained. She began working with the organization while completing her residency in New York City. Since then, she’s had the opportunity to travel with the NBA all over the world.
“Getting to work with athletes at that level is phenomenal,” Gould said. “I never thought I would be working with an organization like the NBA.”
Gould and her husband, an orthopedic surgeon at UAB, recently traveled to China with the organization for two global exhibition games. According to Gould, China’s NBA market is astounding.
“It’s a really big deal and it’s exciting,” Gould said. “There’s a lot of energy around it because there are so many crazy fans.” The exhibition included a game between the Charlotte Hornets and the Los Angeles Clippers, and the trip included both teams dancers, trainers, mascots and more.
Serving that many people isn’t without its challenges.
“If everybody’s really healthy, you can do nothing, but unfortunately that never happens because everybody is jetlagged and working around the clock,” Gould said. “It’s really exciting and it’s really important to everyone to do this because we’re promoting NBA internationally and this may be a fan’s first exposure to the NBA. Everybody wants it to be a good experience and everybody is burning the candle at both ends.”
Gould said she begins preparing for these types of trips by traveling to the country months in advance to scout out hospitals and strategize treatment plans.
“Healthcare standards are really different in China than they are here, so we’re trying to work around that,” she said. “Also, any time you’re working with someone who’s high profile, it’s difficult to maintain their privacy. Things like HIPPA don’t exist in China.”
Gould said that, although the experiences include a lot of moving pieces, it’s ultimately a lot of fun.
“It was fun and challenging to get all the logistics squared away,” she said. “But fortunately we have a lot of experience doing this, so it really falls together pretty easily when we’re in the markets.”
Although Gould says she loves the NBA and enjoys her yearly stints as the courtside doctor, she won’t be leaving Birmingham anytime soon.
“Most of what I do on a day-to-day basis is working with high school kids and elementary school kids who get hurt playing club soccer or on the playground, and that’s really the best part of my job,” she said. “The NBA is a lot of glitz and glamour and it’s really cool, but it’s the day-to-day stuff that you really have to love.”