A team of young athletes with their hands in a circle.

FREE Sports Physicals – August 3rd, 2023

Atlantic Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine will be offering free sports physicals to all student athletes for the 2023-2024 sports season on Thursday, August 3rd from 5pm to 7pm at our Portsmouth, NH facility.

Young athletes planning to participate in a sports activity during their school year are encouraged to stop by for a complete examination. Physicals will be free of charge and a RSVP is required. Please call (603) 431-1121 to schedule an exam.

The Atlantic Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine Portsmouth, NH address is 1900 Lafayette Road Suite A. Please complete this form prior to your exam.

Interior photograph of The Music Hall in Portsmouth NH

Proud to Sponsor The Music Hall’s 2023 Fill the Hall Food Drive

Atlantic Orthopaedics is proud to sponsor The Music Hall’s 2023 Fill the Hall Food Drive on June 24, from 9am to 2pm. This year we’re challenging the community to fill every one of The Historic Theater’s 900 seats with bags of food. All food and monetary gifts will go to the Meals 4 Kids program facilitated by Gather, who have been serving local residents for over 200 years.  

We need your help to Fill the Hall with the 60 tons of food needed to provide nutritious summer meals for more than 700 children on the Seacoast. These 10 meals a week will  fill the gap for kids in the months when subsidized school meals aren’t available. Needed items include: snacks like granola bars, raisins, and fruit snacks, peanut butter, low sugar squeeze jelly, canned tuna and chicken, rice, cereal, canned ready-to-serve soup, shelf stable milk, gluten-free foods, and personal care items like shampoo, soap, and toothpaste.

Atlantic Orthopaedics will be collecting dry goods from 6/12 – 6/23 to bring over to the Music Hall. If you are able to donate, come by during office hours in this time frame to make a donation.


Learn more here: https://www.themusichall.org/events/fill-the-hall-2023/

Dr. Glen Crawford Humanitarian Seacoast NH

Dr. Glen Crawford Featured As Portsmouth Regional Hospital’s Employee Spotlight

Click HERE to read the entire Portsmouth Regional Hospital Article.

Dr. Glen Crawford demonstrating C-arm and fracture table in OR completely equipped by donated equipment from the Crawfords and IMEC.

For more than 30 years, our very own Dr. Glen Crawford and his wife Dr. Sue Abkowitz have been spending a few weeks to a few months each year volunteering their time in countries such as Indonesia, Bhutan, Vietnam, South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.

They have built clinics, sent many 40-foot containers of medical equipment, supported educational and environment programs, developed sports programs and much, much more.

They recently were highlighted and interviewed for Portsmouth Regional Hospital’s Employee Spotlight to share about their adventures.

We are so grateful to have a humanitarian like Dr. Crawford on our team!

Dr. Sue Abkowitz, celebrating the bounty of goods (container of medical equipment and supplies) in rural Bura, Kenya.

Dr. Glen Crawford is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon specializing in trauma and fracture care. Since joining the practice in 2011, he has continued to offer exceptional service to Seacoast residents. In 2003, Orthopaedics Overseas (a division of HVO, Health Volunteers Overseas) awarded Dr. Crawford the prestigious “Volunteer Surgeon of the Year Award” in recognition of his extensive volunteer work in Tanzania. He has since traveled there over 17 times, providing patient care and introducing orthopedic technology to local physicians and hospitals.

As a result of his hard work and dedication to patient care, Dr. Crawford was named a Top Orthopedic Surgeon by New Hampshire Magazine in 2022.

AOSM Offers Free Physicals

Free Sports Physicals

We are offering free sports physicals to all student athletes for the 2022-2023 sports year on July 27th from 5pm to 7pm at our Portsmouth, NH office.

Young athletes planning to participate in a sports activity during their school year are encouraged to stop by for a complete examination. Physicals will be free of charge and a RSVP is required. Please call (603) 559-8341 to schedule an exam. Thank you!

The Atlantic Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine Portsmouth, NH address is 1900 Lafayette Road Suite A.

Contact us HERE if you have any questions!

NH Magazine Names AOSM Doctors, 2022 Top Docs

2022 Top Docs

Each year, over 3,000 licensed New Hampshire physicians nominate their peers for the opportunity to receive the honor of ‘Top Doctor.’ Those named Top Doctors received the greatest number of recommendations within 55+ specialties, and the results are in! We think all of our docs are top, but this year, seven of our physicians were voted ‘Top Doctor,’ including:
(Pictured below from left to right)

Glen Crawford, MD – Top Doctor for Orthopaedic Surgery
Robert Eberhart, MD – Top Doctor for Hand Surgery
Andy McMahon, DO – Top Doctor for Sports Medicine
Mayo Noerdlinger, MD – Top Doctor for Orthopaedic Surgery
H. Matthew Quitkin, MD – Top Doctor for Hand Surgery
Akhilesh Sastry, MD – Top Doctor for Orthopaedic Surgery
William Sutherland, MD – Top Doctor for Orthopaedic Surgery

Congratulations to all the 2022 Top Doctors!

Learn more about our providers in Portsmouth, NH and York, ME HERE. Or click HERE to make an appointment with our orthopaedic and sports medicine team.

New Ambulatory Surgery Center Coming to AOSM!

New England Center for Orthopaedic Surgery Will Open Spring 2021

Atlantic Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine broke ground last week on a new ambulatory surgery center, New England Center for Orthopaedic Surgery.

The new, single-story ambulatory surgery center, affiliated with Portsmouth Regional Hospital and jointly owned with HCA Healthcare, will provide high-quality outpatient care for orthopedic patients.

The project encompasses 11,000 square feet of space for patients and visitors, and the building is located at 1900 Lafayette Road, Suite E, Portsmouth, New Hampshire 03801.

New England Center for Orthopaedic Surgery will feature:

  • Three operating rooms specially designed for orthopedic procedures
  • Private registration area for patients
  • Modern, comfortable waiting area with welcoming atmosphere
  • Operating rooms with the most up-to-date technology

The new, state-of-the-art facility will be highly specialized as a single-specialty center offering only orthopedic procedures for patients.  It is set to be complete in the spring of 2021.

“Patients in Portsmouth will have a safe, convenient and cost-effective environment for receiving orthopedic outpatient care at New England Center for Orthopaedic Surgery,” said Michael Morwood, MD, orthopedic surgeon at New England Center for Orthopaedic Surgery. “Our modern ambulatory surgery center will be thoughtfully designed to ensure patients will feel comfortable and at ease while receiving excellent healthcare.”

About The HCA Healthcare Ambulatory Surgery Division

The HCA Healthcare Ambulatory Surgery Division operates and jointly owns with physicians, 144 ambulatory surgery centers throughout the United States. Located in 16 states with more than 3,200 physician partners, the HCA Healthcare Ambulatory Surgery Division is focused on collaborating with physicians to advance healthcare in our communities. Each year, the HCA Healthcare Ambulatory Surgery Division cares for more than 786,000 patients. HCA Healthcare ambulatory surgery centers are built on a foundation of quality care and a commitment to providing patients with healthier tomorrows.

New 1.5T Open MRI Available Now!

On June 30th, 2020, we will scan our first patient on a brand new 1.5T open MRI machine. This new MRI machine is one of few in the region that offers this level of detail and clarity, along with the largest field of view to create the most comfortable patient experience.

The state-of-the-art 1.5T GE Voyager is a 70 cm open MRI and is considered to be the gold standard for imaging. The machine comes fully equipped with new, innovative features including:

-MAVRIC software that allows imaging for patients with implants with no reduction in image quality. As more patients are receiving joint replacements, this is a terrific solution to improve the medical care that they need.

-A wider and more comfortable table design that sits lower to the ground, allowing for feet-first or head-first imaging. This features memory foam surfacing, is easier access for patient positioning, and accommodates up to 550 lbs.

-The open 70cm of headroom is the most comfortable patient experience without compromising imaging quality. 1.5T imaging is preferred by radiologists.

If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of having this new machine at our Portsmouth, NH location, please let us know.

CONTACT US

Dr. Crawford’s Adventures in Volunteering

Did you know Dr. Crawford has traveled extensively doing humanitarian work since the 1980s?

He has been particularly active in Tanzania, East Africa, where he has visited to teach African physicians in orthopedic surgery, help build new hospital facilities, and supply them with new equipment for better patient care (in partnership with the Greater Newburyport-Bura Alliance).

Please take a moment to watch this video he recently put together about his travels and learn a bit about his incredible humanitarian work!

Published April 23rd, 2020 

 

A Day in the Life of Dr. Crawford’s Volunteering, Week 2

March 13, 2019
Moshi, Tanzania, East Africa

Long bone fractures, such as the femur, tibia and humerus, make up the vast majority of our patients’ injuries. Traditionally, these mostly occurred from falls at a height, climbing a tree to get fruit. As Tanzania has become more developed in the past few decades, the injury patterns have changed dramatically. Very few people own cars here so they must rely on public transportation. It is very easy and quite inexpensive to travel long distances in buses. The drivers are usually young men and they often compete with each other for a reputation as the fastest driver. This predictably leads to catastrophes.  My first day volunteering in Tanzania, back in 2008, a speeding bus overturned with 67 people onboard.  Four died at the scene. The driver ran away. There are no emergency services here as we know, so the rest of the injured were loaded on a dump truck and brought on a two-hour drive to our hospital. Five more died en route. I was called down to the emergency room as the staff there were overwhelmed by the inundation of patients. Blood was everywhere and the injured were two-to-a-bed and covering the floor, making it hard to walk. My disaster training was helpful, but there are limits to what can be done in any situation like this, and we triaged the patients to do the most good for the greatest number. We had only a small amount of blood in the blood bank. One of the patients I was in charge of was a 29-year-old whose young daughter was uninjured. The mother was awake when she arrived but clearly had significant abdominal bleeding. She had lost so much blood I could not find a vein to start intravenous fluids, so I had to make an incision (without anesthesia) at her ankle to start an IV. Despite saline solution in large amounts, her abdomen continued to visibly enlarge, and we decided we needed to use the limited blood on patients we thought we could save. Her death and the reaction of her child have continued to bother me since.

KCMC built a new emergency department two years ago, and my wife Sue and I helped equip it with a container of donated medical equipment, including stretchers, monitors, resuscitation equipment, ultrasound, and x-ray. They now have regular blood drives. I am confident my patient from several years ago would live if she came today.

Inexpensive Chinese motorcycles (about $600) have now become the bane of orthopedists’ existence in developing countries, with road traffic injury levels reaching epidemic proportions. On almost every corner there are young men with their piki pikis offering a cheap, fast, and convenient taxi service. Anyone purchasing a motorcycle is supposed to go through a training program and get a license, but it is easy to pay someone with a license to buy a motorcycle for you and you are in business. As with the buses, the drivers compete to be the fastest and weave in and out of traffic, drive on the shoulders, and often pass on the wrong side at high speeds. The consequences of this system are many severe accidents. For those that survive and are able to get transported to the hospital (usually from a Good Samaritan), our work begins.

Four to eight of these patients arrive at our ER daily. Our intern, who is one year removed from medical school, is the first to be called. For an open long bone fracture, triage involves immediate IV antibiotics, tetanus vaccine (we get about 3 cases of tetanus per month), and a splint. As soon as possible, we try to get the patient to the operating room to wash out the wound and remove dirt and dead tissue. The orthopedic resident on call will perform this procedure. More senior backup is available if needed.
Before we started the teaching program at KCMC, these patients would generally have a pin inserted through the bone just below the knee for a femur fracture or through the heel for a tibia fracture and be placed in bed on traction for 2-3 months. Understandably, this leads to severe joint stiffness and muscle atrophy, and the bone often heals with deformity or doesn’t heal at all. Luckily, due to our donations of medical equipment, treatment now is quite different. For the more severe tibia and joint injuries, an external fixator can be placed, which involves several pins placed into the bone connected by an external metal frame. This allows people immediate mobilization.

I feel the most important difference we have made is the donation of a SIGN nail set. The Surgical Implant Generation Network (signfracturecare.org) was started by my friend, Dr. Lew Zirkle, several years ago to address the problem of treating long bone fractures in resource-poor settings. At home, these fractures are treated with metal rods placed down the center of the bone using an x-ray machine to guide the rod. SIGN has developed an ingenious rod that can be placed without the use of x-ray. For a one-time donation, a hospital receives two instrument sets and 100 nails. As long as the patient results are reported back to the SIGN database, every nail that is used is forever replaced for free. The hospital in the capital of Tanzania uses about 1,000 nails per year. Hundreds of thousands of these nails have been used around the world. Our motorcyclist patients can now be treated with a state-of-the-art nail at no cost and be up out of bed 1-2 days after the operation, and usually full weight-bearing by six weeks without the morbidity of prolonged bedrest. The main problem now with these patients is getting them to return to the clinic at six weeks when they feel fine.

Last Friday, I visited two of my former residents who are the orthopedists at the government hospital in Arusha, Tanzania. They are very frustrated to need to still use traction as they have no SIGN program. I promised them I would try to raise funds for a SIGN set when I return home. Like most doctors around the world, they want the best available care for their patients.

Glen Crawford, MD, Atlantic Orthopedics and Sports Medicine

A Day in the Life of Dr. Crawford’s Volunteering, Week 1

March 6, 2019
Moshi, Tanzania, East Africa

I am now at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre in Northern Tanzania. This is my twentieth trip volunteering with Orthopedics Overseas, a group dedicated to teaching orthopedics in less developed countries. My wife, Suzanne, and I came here as medical students in 1985, and were frustrated (as were all the doctors working here) at the difficulty treating needy patients in a resource-poor environment. I started the KCMC teaching program in 2008, and we have had orthopedic surgeons from around North America volunteer here, as well as sponsored doctors from KCMC to come to the United States for specialized training. Sue and I have also sent 7 containers of medical equipment here, the most recent of which arrived the day before we did.

The hospital has around 800 beds and serves as a referral center for 15 million people. It is also a major teaching center, with medical and nursing schools and many postgraduate training programs including the orthopedic residency, which is the main focus of our teaching program. Before starting residency, the physicians have all practiced general medicine for at least three years, and the orthopedics training is four years. When they take their final exams they are expected to be knowledgeable and competent in all aspects of orthopedics. We volunteers especially focus our teaching on aspects of orthopedics the residents may not be exposed to as much while caring for patients here. As an example, I brought an arthroscopy unit here, and we had a teaching session for the residents using cow knees from the market before performing the first arthroscopy in the region on a patient with excellent results. Prior to this they could only read about sports medicine procedures.

Trauma makes up the majority of our work here. As in much of the developing world, road-traffic accident rates are skyrocketing due to the availability of cheap motorcycles, more cars and careless driving. As at home, cell phone use, speeding and alcohol are major contributing factors. Trauma is the leading cause of death and disability ages 20-40. As a referral center, we are sent the most severe cases and there are many compound or open fractures. Last year when I was here for two weeks, we saw three patients with bilateral open femur and tibia fractures (above and below the knee). We now have 80 patients in the hospital. I will relate some of their stories next.

Glen Crawford, MD, Atlantic Orthopedics and Sports Medicine

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dr. mcmahon with patient

Dr. McMahon to Speak on Back Pain at York Senior Center

York, ME – Andrew McMahon, DO of Atlantic Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine will speak to members of the York Senior Center on back pain as part of a Lunch and Learn Program for the Center. He will be joined by Dr. Bryan Hoffman from Saco Bay Physical Therapy for the event, held Tuesday, May 2nd, beginning at 10:30am.

 

Dr. McMahon will present information on chronic back pain, including common causes, methods to combat pain, and how to prevent it before pain strikes. In his practice, Dr. McMahon stresses the importance of identifying the underlying reason for injury in treatment – a key topic during the Senior Center program.

 

“By recognizing and correcting deficits in strength, flexibility, and the way we move our bodies, we heal quicker and we protect ourselves from future injuries,” he said. “In my mind, education, motivation and partnership with my patients are the keys to success.”

 

A Board-Certified physician at Atlantic Orthopaedics, Dr. McMahon specializes in sports medicine, musculoskeletal ultrasound and post-concussion management. He received his BS from the University of New Hampshire and his DO from the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine.

 

Atlantic Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine is a group of Board-Certified physicians who utilize the latest concepts in orthopaedics and sports medicine, coupled with preventive and surgical techniques. For more information, visit www.atlanticorthopaedics.org, or call the Portsmouth clinic at 603.431.1121.

Atlantic Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine