Christina Allen, MD, FAAOS, joins the Yale Department of Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation as a professor and Sports Medicine Division Chief and Yale Head Team Physician on Nov. 1.
Allen, a Connecticut native and renowned sports medicine surgeon specializing in complex knee and shoulder injuries, was named chief after working at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. In her role as Yale Head Team Physician, she will also oversee all medical treatment plans for Yale Athletics, creating a new centralized on-campus program for sports medicine under the Department of Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation.
“I love working with intercollegiate athletics and the patient population that goes along with that,” Allen says. “I wanted a new challenge, and the work here at Yale creates an opportunity to make this a premiere program for treatment of sports medicine injuries. Working in academic medicine is an opportunity to teach and learn cutting-edge techniques and share the excitement I had when I started my career alongside new residents, medical students and fellows. You see them have that spark, and it feels new all over again.”
Allen, an avid soccer enthusiast and former collegiate athlete is an orthopaedic team physician for US Soccer and has traveled with both the US Women’s National Team and Men’s National Team for competitions in Russia, China, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and Poland. She has also served as the head physician for the USA Taekwondo National Team at the 2012 Olympics in London and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Her research has looked into failure mechanisms with single and multiple ACL revision surgeries, and she specializes in ACL revision, meniscus transplants, cartilage restoration, shoulder sports medicine injuries, and proximal hamstring repairs.
“I like to do the types of work that other surgeons rarely do,” Allen says. “We want to take care of people across the spectrum with their abilities and injuries. I like the complex injuries that need some detective work to figure out what’s going on. Like a failed ACL surgery. Why did it fail? What can I do differently to make it succeed? I think it’s the engineer in me. I want something that might require a little research to gather and study the x-rays and MRI and prior operative reports and make sure I’m considering all of the critical components of the work.”
Lisa L. Lattanza, MD, FAOA, FAAOS, Chair of the Department of Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation, is very familiar with Allen’s work, as the two worked together in the department of Orthopaedic Surgery at UCSF.
“Dr. Allen is critical to the growth of the Sports Medicine program. We are very excited and fortunate to have Dr. Allenjoin us here at Yale,” Dr. Lattanza says. “We were colleagues for years at UCSF. She is exactly the right person at the right time to build a destination sports medicine program for this community. Dr. Allen was the ‘go-to’ person for any complex problem in sports medicine at UCSF. She developed quite a following in the Bay area and I am confident that she will do the same here. In addition, she is world renowned for her care of Olympic and professional athletes. She understands what it takes to build a high-level comprehensive sports program for high school, collegiate, and professional athletes.”
Allen wants to build a sports medicine community at Yale, working alongside other physicians, physical therapists, athletic trainers, and others involved in a patient’s recovery and rehabilitation process. “If you want to be known as a center that works on and fixes the problems that other people can’t fix – either because they don’t have the training or the operation is too complex and costly – you need to be out there and be seen,” Allen says. “I want to work with the patient’s physical therapist, too, to be part of the process and show that I care about the rehabilitation process as part of healing.”
She sees opportunity in what the department has already built. Yale Orthopaedics serves as the primary team physicians for Yale Athletics and the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun, Major League Lacrosse’s Connecticut Hammerheads, and the Connecticut Blackwolves, a professional indoor lacrosse team. There is room for growth in specialty programs like the Women’s Health Program, a concussion program under the direction of Assistant Professor Samantha Smith, and the new Patellofemoral Instability Program with Professor John Fulkerson.
“While another place might turn a patient away because their injury is too complex to manage, we want to be known as the place that can fix their problem,” Allen says.
Allen is a biomedical engineer by training and earned her bachelor’s degree from Duke University. After graduation, she worked as Chief of Biomedical Engineering at the Veterans Affairs medical centers in Philadelphia and San Francisco before enrolling at UCLA School of Medicine. She completed both her residency in orthopaedic surgery and fellowship in Sports Medicine and Shoulder Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh.
I wanted a new challenge, and the work here at Yale creates an opportunity to make this a premiere program for treatment of sports medicine injuries. Working in academic medicine is an opportunity to teach and learn cutting-edge techniques and share the excitement I had when I started my career alongside new residents, medical students and fellows. You see them have that spark, and it feels new all over again.
Christina Allen, MD, FAAOS