Outliers: Hockey doc tends Olympians

With players like Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks, T.J. Oshie of the St. Louis Blues and Jonathan Quick of the Los Angeles Kings, the U.S. Olympic hockey team featured an all-star cast. And Dr. Michael Stuart was there in Sochi, Russia, ready to fit them with a plaster cast if the action in the rink caused a fractured limb.

Stuart, a professor and vice chairman of orthopedic surgery and co-director of the Sports Medicine Center at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., made his third tour of duty as physician for Team USA. A knee-surgery specialist, Stuart told Minnesota Public Radio he's also on the lookout for signs of concussion and shoulder injury.

Stuart, who has three sons who have played professional hockey and a daughter who played in college, takes concussions extremely seriously. He told USA Today that when players ask him when they can return to play after a concussion, he gets their attention by telling them “sometime between a week and never.”

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