High school football players injured under the Friday night lights now have a place to see a board-certified sports medicine doctor when the pain hits Saturday morning.
Nigel Sparks, M.D., an assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at the University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville, opened a new clinic this fall.
Sparks runs the walk-in clinic from 9 to 11:30 a.m. Saturdays at the UF Bone and Joint Center at Emerson, 4555 Emerson St., Suite 100. No appointments are needed and most insurance is accepted.
Weekend walk-in sports clinics are fairly common across the country, said Sparks, who completed a sports medicine fellowship at the Uribe Hechtman Zvijac Sports Medicine Institute in Coral Gables and worked in private practice in the Tampa area before coming to UF two years ago.
Sparks said he decided to start it during football season and, if there’s enough interest, would try to keep it going throughout the year. And while it is structured around high school football calendar, it’s open to anyone.
If a 70-year-old hurts his knee mowing the lawn, or a “weekend warrior” hurts herself playing pick-up basketball, now there’s a place to go outside of normal business hours, Sparks said.
“It’s really about providing the service to the community for people who don’t want to wait until Monday to see a specialist,” Sparks said.
And the local amateur athletes will be seeing doctors that treat some of the region’s premier athletes.
UF doctors are the team physicians for the Jacksonville Suns, the Double-A baseball affiliate of the Florida Marlins. University doctors also have the same role for Edwards Waters College, Stanton College Preparatory School and the Jacksonville Giants of the American Basketball Association.
For more information on the Saturday morning clinic, call (904) 633-0174.