Meet Dr Jonathan Korgaonkar: Consultant in Sports and Exercise Medicine
Dr Jonathan Korgaonkar runs the Sports and Exercise Medicine clinic at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, treating people with a range of musculoskeletal issues including acute knee, shoulder and ankle injuries. We talk to Jonathan about his career at the Trust, his work in professional sport and his new private practice at Charing Cross Hospital.
Can you tell us about your role at the Trust?
I run the Trust’s NHS Sports and Exercise Medicine clinic, where I’ve worked as a consultant for six years now. I completed my Sports Medicine training in London, which included working as a registrar at Imperial College Healthcare, during which I got to know the Emergency Medicine and Orthopaedic departments. I’m now also running the new private Sports and Exercise Medicine clinic.
Across NHS and now also private services, we support patients to be physically active by assessing, diagnosing and treating a range of sport-related conditions, as well as general musculoskeletal issues, such as joint or tendon problems – it’s a wide and varied clinic which I’ve built up over the course of time.
My role also involves research - I have registrars and academic fellows who I supervise, and we have also started to work in collaboration with the Rheumatology team. At present we have commenced a study to understand the risk factors in the development of osteoarthritis after an acute knee injury.
What inspired you to go into the sports medicine field?
I'm quite an active person – I played lots of sports growing up and I’ve always been very interested in sports, so first of all it was a privilege to be able to marry up my medical background with working in the Sports and Exercise Medicine field. Secondly, I feel I am well placed to understand the value of sport and exercise in people’s lives, and why it is so important for people to be able to return to it when injured.
I also think it’s really important to promote the benefits of physical activity and help people get back to playing sports and generally being active, for their overall health and wellbeing.
What are some of the most common sports injuries you see?
Probably the most common would be acute and chronic knee injuries. I look after people of all ages, but our clinic does tend to see younger people with acute sporting or overuse injuries.
However, we also see people with osteoarthritis, sometimes at an early stage. It is important to educate and reassure some of these people that they can continue to be active and enjoy exercise. We can facilitate this by working with our Physiotherapy colleagues who carry out an excellent job in helping them back into activity. We also work closely with our Orthopaedic colleagues for those who may require further intervention.
And how can people reduce the risk of sports injuries?
Staying fit and active is probably the biggest way people can reduce the risk of sports injuries. We often see people who get injured when they have been relatively physically inactive, and they can then become deconditioned and more susceptible. So it’s really important to maintain physical activity and try to keep strong and active, but not suddenly doing intense things to which your body is not accustomed. Over time the body will adapt and tolerate increasing levels of activity and this can be extremely rewarding.
You’ve also worked in professional sports. Tell us about this.
I worked for West Ham United Football Club and also Brentford Football Club with the first teams, covering matches and looking after the teams’ general wellbeing. I also previously worked for the English Institute of Sport, which involved looking after Olympic and Paralympic athletes on their journey to, and during, competitions. Professional sport is a very interesting but demanding setting. The individual athletes are extremely competitive and eager to perform at the highest level. With increased demands on the body, injuries often occur and can seem minor to some but are often devastating for the athlete. There can often be challenging situations as the medical team need to make quick decisions as to whether an athlete is fit enough to compete or not. One has to balance what is right for the individual as well as the team. This often involves discussions on the best ethical approach, wanting to ensure that short term decisions don’t lead to longer term problems. But, when things go right, a Premier League dressing room after a great away win can be an incredibly fun place to be!
We now send our Sports Medicine trainees out to placements at football clubs and professional sports bodies around London. One of my roles as a consultant at the Trust is to support the trainees coming through, who work within our clinic as well as with the Rheumatology and Orthopaedic teams. We facilitate their training with placements, so they get opportunities to experience life in elite sport but are supported so they don’t feel too isolated, which can happen in this area of medicine.
What have been your career highlights to date?
I've definitely enjoyed working in professional sport at big games and big events - covering those has been really good fun. However, I genuinely enjoy running the clinic here.
Five or six years ago, I was often on my own seeing 6 to 12 patients per session, and now we see around 40 patients a session as a team. We now have a wider multidisciplinary team including orthopaedic colleagues and physiotherapists, with research embedded and really good feedback from most patients who have come to the clinic.
It's very nice to have built that service up over time and I’m looking forward to emulating that in private care now and supporting more people to remain active.
Whether you play elite or amateur sports, or you simply want to improve your muscle and joint pain to enjoy everyday activities, we can support you.
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