Duke Medical Minute allows Duke specialists to give a brief snapshot into men's health offerings at Duke.

In this episode, Chris Fiander, PT, OCS, a staff therapist at Duke Sports Medicine, answers questions about Duke's orthopaedic treatment options and how patients can gain access to this expert care.

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Podcast Transcript

Announcer: Chris Fiander is the senior staff therapist at Duke Sports Medicine, North Duke Street location.

Physical therapy -- what conditions, specifically, do you treat?

Fiander: We treat a variety of conditions including acute, centralized low back pain, sciatica, chronic disc-related issues, and muscle strains, and we even treat conditions that are related to post-trauma like motor vehicle accidents, whiplash injuries, and such.

Announcer: Potential patients do have direct access to your facilities and potentially to your help?

Fiander: Not everybody needs a doctor’s referral to come in. Many of the private insurances allow direct access for physical therapy.

Announcer: There’s pre- and post- possible surgery. You might come in and realize there’s something else that needs to be done. This would be a place to figure that out.

Fiander: Before we even proceed with an active rehabilitation program, we rule out any of the big, scary things. And if there is something that’s big and scary, we try to get them to the right people within the Duke system. Duke has some of the best orthopaedists around.

Announcer: And in order to come see you guys, you do have multiple locations?

Fiander: A lot of people think they just have to go to the main hospital for our services; we’re actually spread through several clinics throughout Durham.

We have 10 outpatient clinics within our department. We go out to the west as far as going to Mebane. We’re in the process of even expanding into Wake County into the Brier Creek location.