As head team physician for the Miami Dolphins and Florida Panthers and a lifelong athlete himself, John Uribe, M.D., admits he’s a bit of an adrenaline junkie. It’s a trait that has served him well in his storied career as an orthopedic surgeon with Baptist Health Orthopedic Care.
My name is John Uribe and I am a sports medicine orthopedic surgeon. So the sports medicine really came from my experience in the military. Most of what I saw was sports type of injuries. It was just the beginning of arthroscopy. I was involved in a lot of the first type of procedures to stabilize the shoulder. Arthroscopically, I developed a different technique for fixation of grafts and anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. It's nice to be in the beginning of a change in the paradigm of how procedures are done. That's a tough question. What makes me good at my job? I think the fact that I really enjoy it. Hey, Alberto, most of my patients aren't athletes but what, what we learn from them can really translate and, and help others. It's one of those things that you just enjoy seeing people recover from your, your work. I am currently the head team physician for the Miami Dolphins and the Florida Panthers, but I was also the head team physician for the University of Miami when they had the great teams. I mean for national championships football, it's certainly something I enjoy observing and since I'm so close to it, the injury patterns that it produces the other sport that I take care of is hockey. There are two teams where the players have to play together to produce victories and it's not just one or two really good players. It's the team. Anything that truly gets my heart rate up I really enjoy. That's why I enjoy tennis. I don't like doubles so much. Even though I'm old, I'd rather play singles. I free dive. I can dive down around 60 ft and hang out a little bit. I like to wind surf and when I'm wind surfing and it's fast. Anything where I'm kind of on the, on the edge, kind of, of, of doing something. That's why I like mountain biking. I, I like the speed. Do I have a bucket list? Well, I'm pretty impulsive. So I just, uh, and I'll tell you from what I've seen in my profession, life is really fragile. Right. You never know what's gonna happen. The next day you can fall off that bike and break your shoulder, you know, hurt your back where you're really then limited. So, um, when opportunities come up to do things, I'll do them. And I just, I think the most valuable thing we have is our time. I just enjoy getting up and doing what I do.
