Smith+Nephew UFC Combat Sports Medicine Course Highlights

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:00]I'm sure getting that belt is inhilation that few of us can understand, but the lows are low. How do you stay balanced?

[00:00:09]>> I think the parallel would be for everybody here that if you all went outside and had your hands run over by a car and you couldn't use them for the next year, how would your life look? How much of your identity is wrapped around the fact that your hands work and you do surgery on people and you fix them? If that gets taken away, who are you and what are you? That's how we feel when everything gets hurt. Nobody cares.

[00:00:34]Nobody cares about you unless you win.

[00:00:48]Welcome to the 2026 Smith and Nephew UFC combat sports medicine course. Over the next two days here in Las Vegas, we're bringing together leading surgeons, performance experts, and UFC athletes to focus on the unique challenges and latest innovations when it comes to treating combat athletes. Let's get started.

[00:01:08]>> Smith and Nephew has sort of focused in on a group of athletes that have been treated in the past like our basketball athletes, like our football athletes.

[00:01:17]Doesn't work that way all the time. And I think Smith and Nephew has caught on to that. And what does that do? That allows innovation to occur.

[00:01:25]>> You know, we're seeing things like um innovative ways to treat rotator cuff with bioinductive collagen implants that have been proven to heal rotator cuff tears faster. That's what's nice about having that innovation.

[00:01:37]>> Without further ado, I want to welcome up to THE STAGE the machine.

[00:01:46]I know that you've had a relationship with Heather, you know, with regard to your recovery and getting over some injuries.

[00:01:52]>> You know, Heather, I I call her like she's magic. I think I have a big injury. I go there and after her treatments and I feel good. We always have some little injuries and um I don't make big deal, but I should training smart and I should taking care of myself and do recovery.

[00:02:09]>> Heather, what's the one thing you would like him to do more of? I mean, I think Rob is just such an amazing human and athlete and he always pushes the limits no matter what he does. Maybe just giving us a little bit of recovery so we don't have to be reactive when there is an injury.

[00:02:25]>> I think combat athletes are generally tougher than than a lot of the other athletes that that that I see. So, um they deal with a lot of bad injuries for a long time before they actually seek medical treatment. And by the time they actually want to see us, like the pathology is typically a lot worse.

[00:02:43]>> I think one of the innovative things that are on the radar for orthopedics over the last 5 years is biology. So how can we increase the healing of whatever we're doing, whether it's rotator cuff tears, whether it's laboral tears, whether it's ACL, there's a big focus on biology and and trying to enhance our repairs. So cardio is a relatively new product and it really is changing the game in the way we're going to be able to treat cartilage. We have a meeting tomorrow where we're going to present on Cardi Hill and the athlete and how it may be different than other types of cartilage options. So, it really is changing the game in a way be able to get people back to their lives.

[00:03:15]>> When talking about the collaboration between Smith and Nephew and the UFC, where do you find the most value in it?

[00:03:20]>> A lot of the products I use, you know, for my surgeries and that come from them and I like their stuff because it just works. And these same, you know, stuff that's working on my everyday patients are just as important for your kind of elite level combat athlete as well.

[00:03:37]>> We were talking last night and you mentioned you've had 14 surgeries. What could us surgeons do better?

[00:03:43]>> As I got deeper into the surgeries, I stopped asking surgeons about physical therapy after the surgery because they never could tell me anything ever. And so I started going to the physical therapists to ask them for the surgeon because then I knew the physical therapist knew a surgeon that would actually talk to them. I never had the PI early in my career. So I'm just glad to see for the sport that they have something like the performance institute because the mixture of the strength and conditioning, the diet, and the rehab.

[00:04:12]I'm starting to see the connections being made.

[00:04:18]When looking to the future, what would you say the ultimate goal of this partnership is?

[00:04:22]>> We're going to develop so much more than just the day-to-day protocols. We're going to research new technology to see if it stands up against the hardest sport in time.

[00:04:31]>> Great to see everybody here. It's good to have the PI participate in this.

[00:04:35]Having the surgeons here along with PT and PA so we can treat the entire athlete, not just a joint. You know, not only do we have the opportunity to educate, but really what we found is we really created a community of practice.

[00:04:48]When we talk about the combat sport athlete, you've got more people doing jiu-jitsu every day. You've got more people entering into the octagon. You've got more people trying boxing to get healthy. Doctors need this opportunity and really need each other to really have some peer-to-peer learning opportunities. And this just lets us really put a stamp on that and drive it home.

[00:05:05]>> From your perspective, what do you think the ultimate goal of the partnership between Smith and Nephew and the UFC is?

[00:05:10]I think it's all about improving the level of care that these athletes are getting.

[00:05:14]>> It's nice to have Smith and Nephew provide us the tools to help these people get back faster because they have a challenge. They have to be able to fight and they have to be able to win.

[00:05:23]>> Smith and Nephew, they made a big big investment on the educational side. And so having the partnership with UFC to allow stuff like this to happen where we can get that exposure, giving us the tools and the resources that we need to take the best care of these athletes.