{"id":43081,"date":"2021-12-23T23:19:17","date_gmt":"2021-12-24T06:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-doctor-headed-to-austria-to-work-with-team-usa\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:11:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:11:29","slug":"durango-doctor-headed-to-austria-to-work-with-team-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-doctor-headed-to-austria-to-work-with-team-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango doctor headed to Austria to work with Team USA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Patrick McLaughlin is headed to Austria to be the U.S. Women\u2019s Ski Team\u2019s doctor at the upcoming World Cup races in Lienze. Courtesy of Patrick McLaughlin<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Dr. Patrick McLaughlin will head to Austria on Sunday to work with as the physician for the women\u2019s U.S. Ski Team at the Audi FIS Ski World Cup race in Lienze, which will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday.<\/p>\n

McLaughlin, who works at Animas Spine, will be making his fourth trip to help out with the Team USA\u2019s skiers. He first helped the team in 2010 in Finland and has since volunteered his services in Chile and Italy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a pinnacle \u2013 working with the best athletes in the world,\u201d he said. \u201cI definitely enjoy being with them in that environment. It\u2019s personally and professionally rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLaughlin played college soccer at UCLA. Between undergraduate and graduate school, he said he spent 10 years a ski bum, teaching kids how to ski at Copper Mountain and later teaching adaptive skiing in Big Bear, California.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn that first trip to Finland, being back with a team, reminded me of a time when training was my main job,\u201c he said, referring to his time at UCLA. \u201dI feel like I can relate to them.\u201c<\/p>\n

At one event, when there was too much snow to ski, he spent two days playing volleyball with the team as part of its dryland training.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re part of the team and doing everything with them,\u201d he said, noting that he\u2019ll eat meals with the team and coaches, attend the same meetings and be on the course with them.<\/p>\n

His first conversation with Bode Miller, back when Miller was in his prime, wasn\u2019t about skiing or other sports, however, it was about kids. McLaughlin has 11-year-old twins, and Miller is a father of seven.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously they have other lives,\u201d he said, but noted most people only know about the athletes as skiers.<\/p>\n

As team physician, McLaughlin also gets to inspect the courses, which has helped him appreciate even more what the skiers do. He remembered one course in Italy at Cortina d\u2019 Ampezzo, known as the \u201cQueen of the Dolomites,\u201d that was steep and tight. Since they don\u2019t want any extra snow on the course because it slows the skiers down, he couldn\u2019t sidestep down it either.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to point it through a 100-yard shot that was straight down through some cliffs,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen they\u2019re skiing, they go so fast in conditions we would consider terrible or ice; that\u2019s what they love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going at speeds upward of 70 mph on ice-hard courses, however, is dangerous. That\u2019s why McLaughlin is needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they do crash, they\u2019re going so fast it\u2019s almost guaranteed there will be some sort of injury. I\u2019m mainly there in case somebody gets hurt and to advocate for them,\u201d he said, noting that he\u2019ll be carrying around a 40-pound pack filled with lifesaving equipment.<\/p>\n

So far he hasn\u2019t had to deal with a serious injury with Team USA, just a couple shoulder injuries he called \u201cminor.\u201d \u201cOften I\u2019m dealing with colds and minor injuries, but I\u2019m prepared to do major, crazy things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also said helping Team USA is good training, giving him access to other doctors in the field and forcing him to keep up with new rules and practices.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, however, he said he grew up watching the skiers on TV and that it was \u201csurreal\u201c when he first got to stand in the starting gate a World Cup race.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny major event is cool to go as a spectator, but being part of it is just different,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In Austria, Mikaela Shiffrin is one skier hes looking forward to watching compete.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to see Mikaela skiing,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019s probably the best skier in the world at slalom and giant slalom. It will be cool to provide support for them as they prepare for the Olympics.\u201d<\/p>\n

COVID has also impacted the sport and when he arrives in Austria he\u2019ll join the team in a bubble. The organization is sending him a bunch COVID test kits that he\u2019ll take with him to restock the team\u2019s supply.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest concern at the moment is getting stuck over there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In Durango, McLaughlin\u2019s practice primarily provides nonoperative spine care and regenerative medicine therapies, such as platelet rich plasma and stem cell treatments for chronic and acute pain and disability.<\/p>\n

To help skiers who aren\u2019t on the World Cup circuit stay healthy, he said it\u2019s important to get fit before venturing out to a ski area.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake sure you\u2019re fit before you even go out on a hill,\u201d he said. \u201cThese athletes train all year, and on days they can\u2019t ski, they do dryland training or cross-training.\u201d<\/p>\n

That cross-training is also important to make your muscles work in different ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake sure you\u2019re mixing up what you\u2019re doing to diversify you\u2019re workouts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The slalom competition will take place in Lienze on Tuesday, and giant slalom will follow on Wednesday. McLaughlin plans to return home the following Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s usually pretty quick trips, but they\u2019re fun,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Patrick McLaughlin volunteering to act as women\u2019s ski team physician<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85565,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43081\/revisions\/85565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43081"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}