By Crystal McGough, sponsored content
OrthoAlabama Spine and Sports has been serving the orthopedic needs of the Eastern Birmingham area and surrounding communities since Dr. Perry Savage founded it in 1987. They have been operating out of their Trussville office since Nov. 2015.
“We are a multidisciplinary orthopedic practice that covers many different specialties,” Dr. Mary Gilmer said. “We provide orthopedic care, but we also have a rheumatologist that provides care for rheumatologic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis or lupus. We have physical medicine doctors, which are specialists in noninvasive muscular skeletal pain, including blocks, injections and physical therapy management of that kind.”
The Trussville practice, which previously operated out of one of the professional buildings at St. Vincent’s East, is now located at 1801 Gadsden Highway. They currently employ 13 physicians, nine of which are orthopedists.
“We just recently added our newest physician who is a hand surgeon,” Gilmer said. “We also have foot and ankle specialists, sports medicine, and spine specialists, so we’re covering a wide variety of areas.”
According to Gilmer, what OrthoAlabama Spine and Sports offers to the Trussville community is unique to the area. In addition to the many services they provide, their office also boasts a procedure room where their doctors can conduct minimally invasive procedures. The physicians at Alabama Ortho Spine and Sports perform their more invasive surgical procedures at Grand View Hospital on Highway 280.
“Our clinic not only offers the physicians, but we also have on-site physical therapy, a pharmacy, we have our medical equipment and our procedure room,” she said. “There’s a lot that can be taken care of in one place rather than having to make several trips to different locations. So it’s a comprehensive treatment center, as opposed to just a ‘doctors office.’”
Gilmer has been a practicing physician at OrthoAlabama Spine and Sports for five years, but her history with the practice goes back 30 years. She first became a part of the OrthoAlabama Spine and Sports family as a patient at the age of six.
In 1999, Gilmer took the first steps toward her medical career by beginning her training at Alabama Ortho Spine and Sports.
“When I was a student in high school, I trained here as a medical assistant,” she said. “Then I worked here as a medical assistant from high school through the first years of medical school.”
Gilmer took a break from OrthoAlabama Spine and Sports while she finished medical school, and after graduating, she did her training in Houston, Texas.
“Then I came home,” she said.
One thing Gilmer said she’s proud of is OrthoAlabama Spine and Sports newest offering to the citizens of Trussville, an orthopedic urgent care located at the Trussville office.
“It is open extended hours, until 8 p.m. most evenings and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.,” she said. “This obviously increases people’s accessibility to specialty care, rather than going to an emergency room for orthopedic issues.”
Additionally, OrthoAlabama Spine and Sports gives back to the community through sponsoring several causes around the Birmingham area, including the “Just A Call Away” 5K fundraiser for the Birmingham Crisis Center and Mayhem on the Mountain, a Cross Fit competition for the whole southeast that takes place at Oak Mountain.
The practice also sponsors Hewitt-Trussville High School’s athletics, as well as the Glory Bound Gyro Company Cycling Team, which includes riders who are recent graduates of HTHS.
While OrthoAlabama Spine and Sports brings much to the Trussville community, perhaps nothing is more important than the quality of care their physicians bring to their patients.
“Our first concern is working with our patients to diagnose the problem as quickly and effectively as possible,” Gilmer said. “Then we manage it in the way that makes the best sense for them, whether that is surgery or whether that is non-operative management such as physical therapy, injections, rehabilitation, those kinds of things. We focus on what is the best way to treat each specific patient and every person as an individual.”
OrthoAlabama Spine and Sports offers services ranging from minimally invasive spine surgery, spinal injections, kyphoplasty, arthroscopic surgery, joint replacement, orthopedic evaluation, and physical medicine and rehabilitation. Patients have the benefit of getting all they need in one place. From the consultation, to MRI’s and CT scans, to surgical procedures, OrthoAlabama Spine and Sports does it all.
Urgent care is open Monday through Thursday, 4pm – 8pm, and Saturday 10 am – 2 pm. After-hours treatment is available for strains, sprains, minor dislocations, closed fractures, neck or back pain and swollen or painful joints.
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