Dr. Joanne Borg-Stein

Photo courtesy of
Harvard Medical

Dr. Borg-Stein’s multiple roles confirm her expertise. A summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Tufts University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, Dr. Borg-Stein developed interests in the musculoskeletal system as she spent many summers researching arthritis.

“This led me to my career in physical medicine and rehabilitation and my starting the Sports Medicine Fellowship at Spaulding/Harvard,” she said. She now holds multiple roles – as Medical Director of Spaulding Rehabilitation in Wellesley, Chief of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Team Physician for Wellesley College (now in her seventh year), and Medical Director of the Newton-Wellesley Spine Center.

In addition to sports medicine, her specialties include pain management and medical acupuncture – acupuncture that applies acupuncture to the neurologic and musculoskeletal underpinnings of sports injury.

In these roles, Dr. Borg-Stein not only practices and teaches (at Harvard Medical School) but also writes and researches in the area of musculoskeletal injuries – everything from ankle and knee sprains to tendonitis and stress fractures and back pain. (She’s published countless articles, chapters and reviews.)

“I have always been interested in the musculoskeletal system and sports,” she said. “I also have a special interest in all aspects of women's sports medicine as well as new non-surgical treatments for sports injury,” she said.

Dr. Joanne Borg-Stein has been leading research to study the use of new techniques to heal injuries and maintain performance in aging bodies. She has, for example, been using new techniques such as PRP, platelet-rich plasma therapy, to treat chronic injuries as Achilles Tendonitis.

The rationale is to utilize growth factors that are concentrated in the athlete’s own platelets through a special process. The platelets are then injected into the area of injury with musculoskeletal ultrasound image guidance. This begins a new reparative process to heal chronic injury to tendons, ligaments, muscle and joints.

Additional research interests are chronic pain and back pain, including sub-acute and chronic cervical and lumbar pain; fibromyalgia, a disorder characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain accompanied by fatigue, sleep, memory and mood issues; and women’s musculoskeletal injuries including conditions related to pregnancy, sports, and osteoporosis.

Being an athlete all her life has motivated Dr. Borg-Stein into these areas of research. “My own sports interest dates back as far as early childhood,” she said. “I played basketball after school with ‘the boys’ when I was in elementary school.” Graduating from high school she was named scholar-athlete, having been a member of the varsity field hockey, volleyball, basketball, and track teams.

What about sports in college? “I started running during college since didn't have time for a varsity sport and a pre-med curriculum,” she said.

In her own experience as an athlete in her forties, she’s seen the need to adjust her training routine. “In my early 40s as I saw the need for strength in addition to aerobic fitness.” She incorporated strength and core training as well as Pilates.

She also started sprint triathlons to balance her training. “I’m slow, but I enjoy them,” she said. At 51 now, she enjoys activities with her husband – racquetball, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, and cycling.

She’s been a sports enthusiast with her children as well. Mother of three grown children – two boys and a girl – all of whom have been athletic, she has run 5K races with them and also coached her daughter’s volleyball team one year.

“All my kids played high school sports, did swim team, ski, hike, etc, and we ran 5Ks together when they were young,” she said. “I was generally the one to attend all the sports games when they were in high school. I even was the assistant coach one year of my daughter's volleyball team.”

And injuries? She’s had them – shoulder and lumbar injuries. The shoulder injury, she explained, resulted from playing volleyball “after a 32-year hiatus” while the lumbar disc injury occurred after a prolonged cough and then injury on the bosu trainer.” I otherwise love my Bosu!” she said.

Talk with Dr. Borg-Stein about her work with patients and you’ll be inspired by stories of overcoming adversity. There was the man in his fifties who no longer feels the pain of once chronic Achilles tendonitis. There’s the women who hiked with her sons in Butan after thinking that her knee would have to be replaced – and it wasn’t. And there’s the 51-year-old triathlete who was sidelined from training because of a chronic hip and hamstring injury and who is now back to triathlons.

More stories and advice from Dr. Borg-Stein will follow in another two articles.

Cathy Utzschneider Ed.D. (human movement), M.B.A., professor of goal setting and competitive performance, Boston College; coach, Liberty Athletic Club, MOVE and Women-Running-Together.com.

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This article was originally printed in National Masters News.

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