CLEVELAND — He's a familiar face to many in Northeast Ohio.
Browns fans have likely seen him on the sidelines during games or on the field helping injured players. Many who've needed orthopedic surgery may have met him at University Hospitals, because he chairs the department of orthopedic surgery and was instrumental in helping create the new Drusinsky Sports Institute, where he now does most of his operations.
Earlier this year, Dr. James Voos took over as president of the NFL Physicians Society for the start of his two-year tenure, and he has a lot of things on the agenda. First, getting everyone working out of the same playbook.
"Activating our emergency action plans, assuring that we've all had a chance to practice them, integrating all of our new team physicians into the NFL and into the NFL Physicians Society," Voos said.
And with the addition of more travel games, he wants care streamlined no matter where.
"Making sure our emergency action plans and our health care protocols don't miss a beat if we are at an international location versus our regular stadiums here in the United States," he added.
Team doctors need to understand new rules, the latest being the banning of hip-drop tackles. For the future, Voos wants wearable technology as part of the uniform.
"Now we can truly use it to predict or to prevent injury and even more exciting ... helping our athletes recover after a surgery that allows them to get back on the field quicker and safer and reduce the risk of a recurrent injury," he said.
He would know, since he's also executive director of the UH Haslam Sports Innovation Center and has published more than 100 scientific papers on orthopedic surgery and sports medicine. In 2023, he was the recipient of the prestigious NFLPS Arthur C. Rettig Award for Academic Excellence for his presentation "Return to Play Assessment after ACL Reconstruction Using Wearable Technology."
Why is this important? Because the innovations, devices, new techniques, and surgical protocols discovered to help professional athletes eventually filter down to the rest of us.
Voos is also lead orthopedic surgeon for multiple Northeast Ohio colleges and high schools who may be our future pro athletes. They're getting access to some of the most cutting edge science available.
And Voos isn't limiting his reach to just football: Last month, he convened the first-ever collaboration of major sports league physician society presidents to work together toward the safety of all professional athletes. Last week, he was part of the SportsLand Summit, with the goal of making Northeast Ohio the hub of high-tech sports science, investment, and innovation.