After 35 years, Dr. Michael Stuart to retire from Mayo Clinic's sports medicine department

Jan. 1—ROCHESTER — Dr. Michael Stuart played all the sports that most small-town athletes play during their high school days.

Football in the fall, basketball in the winter, baseball in the spring and summer. His talent on the football field even led to a college scholarship to play and study at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., 50 miles west of Indianapolis.

He was just Michael Stuart at the time — the mid-1970s — and was a standout athlete at St. Bede Academy in Peru, Ill. (approximately 100 miles west of the heart of Chicago). It was there that his interest in the medical field began to blossom into a fascination.

Like a young man obsessed with how a sports car works, Stuart was instead intrigued by the human body, how it functions, how it mends itself and how surgeons piece it back together when it breaks down.

"One of my best friends growing up, who lived a block away, his father was a general surgeon in our small town," Dr. Stuart said. "I was always interested in medicine. I used to go into surgery and observe him when I was in high school. Long before my own knee injuries in college, I wanted to become a physician.

"I didn't know it was going to be orthopedics, I didn't know I was going to be a knee specialist and a sports medicine specialist, but I was interested in medicine from early adolescence."

That early interest spawned a career that spanned more than four decades and one that turned Michael Stuart, high school sports star and college football player, into Dr. Michael Stuart, one of the most respected and knowledgeable orthopedic surgeons in the United States. His extensive resume includes six Olympic Games as the team physician for USA Hockey, serving as the lone U.S. representative on the International Ice Hockey Federation medical committee and serving as a Second Medical Opinion Physician for the NHL Players Association.

Those bullet points are just the tip of an impressively sized iceberg.

More so than all of those honors, though, Dr. Stuart takes pride in the countless number of patients he has served and fixed during a 35-plus year career at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

It's time, though, he said, to step aside as the sports medicine department's co-chair. It's a department that he joined in its infancy and helped turn it into one of the best in the world. After more than three decades in that capacity — among many others — he is retiring.

Dr. Stuart performed his final surgery on Nov. 9. His final day at the clinic was Dec. 14. His retirement becomes official on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024, and he becomes an emeritus professor at Mayo Clinic a day later.

"The most important things are the patient relationships," Dr. Stuart said, "because it's a pretty special job when someone puts their faith and trust in you, and you develop a very personal relationship. You have to perform, and the real reward is their happiness.

"So in orthopedics and sports medicine, we can relieve pain, we can improve activity level and we can enhance the quality of life. And to me, those patient stories, the very kind notes and letters that I'm getting from patients really are important to me."

As Dr. Stuart arrived at Mayo Clinic in 1988 for a residency in orthopedic surgery, there wasn't an official sports medicine department. But at that same time, Dr. Bernard Morrey was taking over as chair of the orthopedic department.

Morrey and a Mayo Clinic colleague, Dr. Franklin Sim, both happened to have a strong interest in treating local athletes. Morrey had been a three-sport athlete in high school, while Sim grew up playing hockey in Canada and had served as a team physician for the United States men's national junior hockey team.

Though there was no formal sports medicine program at Mayo Clinic, Dr. Morrey and Dr. Sim took it upon themselves to attend local high school sports events and to place a priority on treating local injured athletes. Sim looked after athletes at what was then called Rochester Community College and John Marshall High School, while Morrey did the same for Lourdes High School.

Dr. Morrey saw something special in a young resident who had been a college athlete.

"We didn't have a formal program, but (Dr. Sim) and I were just willing to go to ball games and see athletes," said Dr. Morrey, who is retired but now lives in Texas and works part-time at the University of Texas-San Antonio. "As Mike was coming on board, I knew he was a great athlete in his own right. We could see he was a natural. So when I became chair, I asked Mike if he was interested in focusing on sports medicine. We talked to him about it, but the problem is, that's not the way it works. (Dr. Stuart) still needed to have a fellowship."

That meant finding a healthcare facility away from Mayo Clinic where Dr. Stuart could further hone his craft. From Dr. Morrey's perspective, the problem with sending Dr. Stuart away was that he and his wife, Nancy, had four children between the ages of 2 and 7, and would the young family be willing to return to Rochester after a fellowship?

"With four young children, how could Michael join the staff, then stop and go do another year of training?" Dr. Morrey said.

The answer to that question set Dr. Stuart on his path to become one of the best in the country and the world in his field.

Dr. Morrey arranged for him to spend a month in California with Dr. Frank Jobe, who is famous worldwide for being the first surgeon to perform "Tommy John" surgery, an elbow procedure that is credited with saving the professional careers of many baseball pitchers.

Not long after Stuart arrived there, Dr. Morrey received a phone call.

"Dr. Jobe said 'Bernie, he's really good,'" Dr. Morrey said. "He could use a more formal fellowship."

From there, Dr. Stuart spent three months at Fowler Kennedy Sports Medicine Clinic in London, Ontario. That gave him enough training time to be considered a trained fellow in sports medicine. And it gave him an opportunity to return to Rochester and the Mayo Clinic.

"He's the one who really gave me the vision that we're going to start with local expertise," Dr. Stuart said of Dr. Morrey, "then we're going to become nationally known, then we're going to become internationally known in the field of sports medicine. He was my mentor, a giant in the field of orthopedics."

Dr. Morrey had his vision, and he had the right people in place to carry it forward.

"We laid out a strategy," said Dr. Morrey, whose son, Dr. Mark Morrey, is now an orthopedic surgeon at Mayo Clinic. "We were mostly taking care of high school athletes, so what kind of research can we do in sports medicine that isn't being done that helps us get the credibility that other sports centers have that take care of pro and college teams?

"If we wanted to be a player and be known for a sports medicine offering, we had to have a basis for our credibility. To me, the cornerstone of the credibility of our program is Mike Stuart. He's a credentialed athlete, very smart, very good judgment and really understands athletes. Making him the first director of our sports program guaranteed it'd be a success."

Two years later, Dr. Edward Laskowski arrived at Mayo Clinic as a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist. It wasn't long before he and Dr. Stuart became co-directors of Mayo's sports medicine center. The two worked together for nearly 30 years, building the sports medicine department into what it is today.

"Ed was just a wonderful partner and he and I were in synchrony with everything we did," Dr. Stuart said. "We both trusted each other's judgment and became such great friends. During that tenure we were able to build facilities in Rochester and in downtown Minneapolis, so we went through a lot together.

"We had common goals but we were both pretty humble. We came from two different departments, two different skill sets, but yet we developed tremendous synergy. We would see patients together, that's the clinical side of it. The administrative side, we were never worried about our own special interests or egos. We had a common goal without any need for personal gain."

Colin Stuart, the second-oldest of Michael and Nancy's four children, has vivid memories of his youth sports days in Rochester. Though he went on to play Division I college hockey and had an 11-year pro hockey career (including 56 games in the NHL, with the Atlanta Thrashers and Buffalo Sabres), a young Colin Stuart was like his dad, playing whatever sport was in season. So did his three siblings, Mike, Mark and Cristin.

That meant a lot of time on the road, going to practices, games and tournaments across Minnesota and eventually across the country.

"We joke that my mom went through two or three (Chevrolet) Suburbans, 250,000 (miles) on all of them, driving all across the state and the region," Colin, 41, who now works for Nike and lives in Oregon with his wife Clara and their two daughters, said with a laugh. "With four kids who played hockey, golf, football, baseball, it was truly a year-round thing.

"But the flexibility that mom gave my dad in those years was huge. Obviously, he had quite a busy schedule and he was an incredible role model for us. But Mom was that rock, for sure."

That isn't to suggest, though, that Dr. Stuart wasn't able to attend his children's events. Between seeing patients, performing surgeries, attending local high school sports events and not missing a Rochester Mustangs junior hockey game for 17 years, his calendar was full. But never too full.

"I don't remember a moment in time where dad wasn't somewhere that I really wanted him to be," said Cristin Stuart, the youngest of the four Stuart siblings. "He made an extraordinary effort to be there for games or events, even though he was incredibly busy. He worked very hard to find that balance of what he wanted his career and family life to look like."

Cristin Stuart played three years of high school hockey for what at that time was the John Marshall/Lourdes co-op. She then played a year for the Minnesota Thoroughbreds before a four-year career at Boston College, where she was a captain as a senior in the 2007-08 season.

"I remember, we were playing in the Hockey East finals and it was exciting for B.C. hockey," said Cristin, who now lives in Rochester with her husband Will Truesdale, a Lourdes graduate who is now an orthopedic surgery resident at Mayo, and their children. "Our team had been reaching milestones for women's hockey at B.C., a really exciting time. I remember going into that game, I looked up in the stands and dad was there.

"That's something I'll never forget. That's him. He shows up everywhere, even when it doesn't seem like he could possibly have the time or energy to do so."

All four of the Stuart siblings played hockey at a high level. Mike played at Colorado College followed by eight years in the pros. Now 42, he is an orthopedic sports medicine fellow at the Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colorado, where he lives with his wife Heather and their two children. Mark, 39 and the youngest of the three Stuart boys, played in 699 NHL games with the Atlanta Thrashers and Winnipeg Jets. He's now an assistant coach with the NHL's Edmonton Oilers. He and his wife Christina have three children.

It was a nice benefit for four talented hockey-playing siblings to have a dad who specialized in treating injuries. It also meant they couldn't hide their bumps and bruises — or anything more severe.

"I had such admiration for him growing up," Mike Stuart said. "In our community of Rochester, how people would come to our house or call him for advice. I remember standing on the sidelines at football games or going to hockey games, thinking 'this is really neat. What a cool job where people are looking to you to help them.'

"I think he's going to miss it tremendously ... but he's the type of person who won't sit still. He won't get bored."

Which brings things back to the family's "rock." Dr. Stuart and Nancy intend to travel often to see their grandchildren and spend more time together. They've known one another since their school days and have been one another's biggest fans ever since.

"We actually met before high school," Dr. Stuart said. "We grew up in the same area. She went to the rival high school. We were high school sweethearts, went to different colleges but stayed together through that. We got married right after I graduated from college, so she went through the whole medical school, residency, fellowship experience with me.

"She's been with me for a long, long time. She's really been the rock who's held our whole family together through all we've all been able to accomplish."

When Dr. Stuart pinned down the date on which he would perform his final surgery — Nov. 9 — his colleagues began to formulate a plan.

Dr. Aaron Krych, a sports medicine specialist who is taking over as chair of the department of orthopedic surgery, requested that he walk Dr. Stuart to the operating room that day. Krych, who has known and learned from Dr. Stuart for more than 20 years, met him at his office on the 14th floor of the Gonda Building that day.

"It was really emotional," Dr. Stuart said. "(Dr. Krych) took me around the back, through a big L-shaped hallway. It was lined by maybe 100 people — I don't even know how many. So we walked through this gauntlet of people and it was incredibly touching. I got to the end and was a little choked up, but said a few words and then got right to work and finished surgery."

And just like that, a three-and-a-half decade run of being the go-to guy for local athletes and anyone suffering from knee troubles, came to an end.

The respect he's earned from the southeastern Minnesota community and throughout the world in his duties with USA Hockey, at the Olympics and many other international events, is humbling not only to him, but to his colleagues and family.

"In my first couple years of practice, you'd see a local athlete who's injured, you'd go through their options and as you're walking out the door they'd say 'so when do I see Doc Stuart?'" Dr. Krych said with a laugh. "When you meet him, it's clear he's advocating for you. He wants you to get back to your goals. He was an athlete and lived it with his sons and daughter through their injuries.

"He really made patients feel at ease, just his experience and sense of trusting the process. If you got to him, you knew things were going to be OK."

Dr. Krych first met Dr. Stuart in 2001, when Dr. Krych was in medical school.

"I was very fortunate to get into Mayo for a couple of reasons," Dr. Krych said. "No. 1, I met my wife there and No. 2, I shadowed Dr. Stuart very early on, saw him in the clinic and in the operating room and thought 'yep, that's what I want to do.'

"He does everything with a confidence and a sparkle. I have observed closely what he does at a very high level. If you ask him what his legacy is, it's the people he's trained and mentored. I take a lot of pride and am very honored (to take over for him). Look at the lives he's touched, the ripple effect. Not only has he taken care of patients, but he's taught hundreds of residents and fellows how to treat their patients."

That level of care and the respect from and for his patients was never lost on Dr. Stuart's family.

"I think it means everything to him," Colin Stuart said. "I've always thought of my dad as the ultimate pro. His level of empathy and care for humans, his patients, is what I admire most. He treats everyone with the highest level of respect and makes sure everyone has a great experience.

"Everyone gets 100 percent of Dr. Stuart. The world would be a great place with more Dr. Stuarts."