Rafael Arriaza, MD, PhD
Universidade da Coruña
A Coruña, Spain
Born Dec. 2, 1960, in Madrid (Spain). I started medical education at Madrid’s biggest university and then, there were two circumstances that clearly decided my future. The first one was the fact that I was gifted or lucky enough to enter the Spanish National Karate Team. Undoubtedly, getting there was not without its share of discipline, a lot of sweat and hard work, endless technique repetitions, life-long friendship, travels and, obviously, some injuries. The second one was that the fact of having experienced myself what an injury means to an athlete led me to choose, in 1984, an Orthopaedic residency program, where I was again lucky enough to meet some incredibly good teachers, including one of the founding partners of the Spanish Arthroscopy Association, created just in 1982, who acted as my mentors and helped me to develop solid arthroscopic skills.
In 1987 I married my wife, Belen, who has been my strong supporter since then, and in 1989 our first son was born, soon followed by another two. By then, I had obtained the University Degree of Sports Traumatology from the University of Nice (France) and was acting as team doctor for the Spanish karate squad. We decided to move to a smaller city by the seaside (La Coruña, in Galicia), and in 1990, I was designated as Chairman of the Medical Commission of the World Karate Federation. Two years later, I started teaching on “Injury Prevention and Exercise Rehabilitation” at the University of La Coruña, and became Head of Sports Traumatology for the Deportivo de La Coruña soccer team, at a time when the team reached top positions in the Spanish and European leagues, and I had the pleasure and the responsibility of treating players who were at the same time playing for their national teams, which made me develop links with top colleagues from all over the world. One of our sons has qualified as orthopaedic surgeon in Madrid, another one qualified as an osteopath in Wales and is actually living in New Zealand, and the third one is working in marketing and branding in La Coruña. In 2012, we opened a new facility, sport-focused, the Instituto Médico Arriaza y Asociados, which has been honoured as Teaching Center for the Spanish Arthoscopy (AEA) and the Spanish Sports Traumatology (SETRADE) societies, as well as ESSKA and ISAKOS. At the same time, I got the assignment to coordinate the Chair of Sports Traumatology at the University of La Coruña, and we receive residents from Spain and Portugal for short-time stays and fellows mainly from Spanish-speaking countries.
Selected Published Work
Arriaza R, Leyes M. Tibiocalcaneal arthrodesis: a new arthroscopic procedure. Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc. 2011;19(1):128-130.
Arriaza R, Ballesteros J, López-Vidriero E. Suprascapular neuropathy as a cause of swimmer’s shoulder: results after arthroscopic treatment in 4 patients. Am J Sports Med. 2013;41(4):887-893.
Arriaza R, Inman D, Arriaza A, Saavedra MA. Low Risk of Injuries in Young Adolescents Participating in Top-Level Karate Competition. Am J Sports Med. 2016;44(2):305-308.
Augustovičová D, Lystad RP, Arriaza R. Time-Loss Injuries in Karate: A Prospective Cohort Study of 4 Consecutive World Karate Championships. Orthop J Sports Med. 2019;7(8):2325967119865866.
Lystad RP, Augustovičová D, Harris G, Beskin K, Arriaza R. Epidemiology of injuries in Olympic-style karate competitions: systematic review and meta-analysis. Br J Sports Med. 2020;54(16):976-983.
Andy Williams MB, BS
Founder, Fortius Clinic
London, UK
Knee surgeon at, and founder of Fortius Clinic, London, UK; Reader at Imperial College London; and Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology, and Musculoskeletal Sciences, University of Oxford. He qualified from King’s College Hospital, London in 1987. Orthopaedic training at The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore, and a year’s Fellowship in Brisbane, Australia with Peters Myers and McMeniman. This is where his experience with sports-related surgery began. On return to the UK in 1997 he became Senior Lecturer / Honorary Consultant at The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore.
Elective practice is exclusively soft tissue knee surgery, and he undertakes around 100 ACL reconstructions per year, of which more than half are on professional athletes, and a multi-ligament reconstruction every 1-2 weeks. This latter work represents one of the World’s largest experiences. He has been the primary knee surgeon for many of the UK’s professional sports teams, including 75% English Premier League soccer, and 80% English Premiership rugby teams for many years. 70% of his patients are professional sportsmen and women, and over 50% of all his operative cases involve this group. He has published over 120 peer-reviewed articles. His study of knee motion employing weight-bearing, ‘dynamic’ MRI fundamentally changed thinking in the field. For this he was awarded The Hunterian Professorship by The Royal College of Surgeons of England for 2005-2006. Current research interests are in the fields of inflammatory response to knee injury, and biomechanics at Imperial College, London, where an anatomical study of the lateral soft tissue restraints aiding the ACL was awarded the Trillat Prize at ISAKOS 2015. Current work there focuses on the medial ligament complex. He was a lead editor of the 39th Edition of Gray’s Anatomy published in December 2004. He was on the executive of The British Association for Surgery of The Knee. He sits on the Editorial. Board of The American Journal of Sports Medicine, and previously the Editorial Board of The Bone and Joint Journal and serves on the Knee: Sports and Preservation committee for ISAKOS, as well as The ESSKA Sports Committee. In 2002 he was awarded the ABC Travelling Fellowship. He was named in the UK’s Top 100 Doctors by The Times newspaper in 2011. He is the first UK member of The Herodicus Society, a U.S. sports surgery organisation.
Selected Published Work
Vedi V, Williams A, Tennant SJ, Spouse E, Hunt DM, Gedroyc WM. Meniscal movement. An in-vivo study using dynamic MRI. J Bone Joint Surg Br. 1999;81(1):37-41.
Logan M, Dunstan E, Robinson J, Williams A, Gedroyc W, Freeman M. Tibiofemoral kinematics of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)-deficient weightbearing, living knee employing vertical access open “interventional” multiple resonance imaging. Am J Sports Med. 2004;32(3):720-726.
Johal P, Williams A, Wragg P, Hunt D, Gedroyc W. Tibio-femoral movement in the living knee. A study of weight bearing and non-weight bearing knee kinematics using ‘interventional’ MRI. J Biomech. 2005;38(2):269-276.
Williams A, Logan M. Understanding tibio-femoral motion. Knee. 2004;11(2):81-88
Logan M, Williams A, Lavelle J, Gedroyc W, Freeman M. The effect of posterior cruciate ligament deficiency on knee kinematics. Am J Sports Med. 2004;32(8):1915-1922.
Bentley G, Biant LC, Carrington RW, et al. A prospective, randomised comparison of autologous chondrocyte implantation versus mosaicplasty for osteochondral defects in the knee. J Bone Joint Surg Br. 2003;85(2):223-230.
Dallalana RJ, Brooks JH, Kemp SP, Williams AM. The epidemiology of knee injuries in English professional rugby union. Am J Sports Med. 2007;35(5):818-830.
Nawabi DH, Cro S, Hamid IP, Williams A. Return to play after lateral meniscectomy compared with medial meniscectomy in elite professional soccer players. Am J Sports Med. 2014;42(9):2193-2198.
Dodds AL, Halewood C, Gupte CM, Williams A, Amis AA. The anterolateral ligament: Anatomy, length changes and association with the Segond fracture. Bone Joint J. 2014;96-B(3):325-331. Most cited paper BJJ 2014
Kittl C, Halewood C, Stephen JM, et al. Length change patterns in the lateral extra-articular structures of the knee and related reconstructions. Am J Sports Med. 2015;43(2):354-362.
Kittl C, El-Daou H, Athwal KK, et al. The Role of the Anterolateral Structures and the ACL in Controlling Laxity of the Intact and ACL-Deficient Knee. Am J Sports Med. 2016;44(2):345-354.
Inderhaug E, Stephen JM, Williams A, Amis AA. Biomechanical Comparison of Anterolateral Procedures Combined With Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction. Am J Sports Med. 2017;45(2):347-354.
Inderhaug E, Stephen JM, El-Daou H, Williams A, Amis AA. The Effects of Anterolateral Tenodesis on Tibiofemoral Contact Pressures and Kinematics. Am J Sports Med. 2017;45(13):3081-3088.
Narvani A, Mahmud T, Lavelle J, Williams A. Injury to the proximal deep medial collateral ligament: a problematical subgroup of injuries. J Bone Joint Surg Br. 2010;92(7):949-953.
Willinger L, Shinohara S, Athwal KK, Ball S, Williams A, Amis AA. Length-change patterns of the medial collateral ligament and posterior oblique ligament in relation to their function and surgery. Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc. 2020;28(12):3720-3732.
Ball S, Stephen JM, El-Daou H, Williams A, Amis AA. The medial ligaments and the ACL restrain anteromedial laxity of the knee. Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc. 2020;28(12):3700-3708.
Athwal KK, Willinger L, Shinohara S, Ball S, Williams A, Amis AA. The bone attachments of the medial collateral and posterior oblique ligaments are defined anatomically and radiographically. Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc. 2020;28(12):3709-3719.
Willinger L, Balendra G, Pai V, et al. High incidence of superficial and deep medial collateral ligament injuries in ‘isolated’ anterior cruciate ligament ruptures: a long overlooked injury [published online ahead of print, 2021 Mar 4]. Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc. 2021;10.1007/s00167-021-06514-x.
Stephen JM, Halewood C, Kittl C, Bollen SR, Williams A, Amis AA. Posteromedial Meniscocapsular Lesions Increase Tibiofemoral Joint Laxity With Anterior Cruciate Ligament Deficiency, and Their Repair Reduces Laxity. Am J Sports Med. 2016;44(2):400-408.
Watt FE, Paterson E, Freidin A, et al. Acute Molecular Changes in Synovial Fluid Following Human Knee Injury: Association With Early Clinical Outcomes. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2016;68(9):2129-2140.
Garriga C, Goff M, Paterson E, et al. Symptomatic outcomes at 2 years after acute knee injury are associated with haemarthrosis and molecular changes at the time of injury and dissociated from early radiographic change: the Knee Injury Cohort at the Kennedy (KICK). The Lancet Rheumatology, in press 2021.
Śmigielski R, Zdanowicz U, Drwięga M, Ciszek B, Williams A. The anatomy of the anterior cruciate ligament and its relevance to the technique of reconstruction. Bone Joint J. 2016;98-B(8):1020-1026.
Stephen JM, Sopher R, Tullie S, Amis AA, Ball S, Williams A. The infrapatellar fat pad is a dynamic and mobile structure, which deforms during knee motion, and has proximal extensions which wrap around the patella. Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc. 2018;26(11):3515-3524.
Bottomley N, Williams A, Birch R, Noorani A, Lewis A, Lavelle J. Displacement of the common peroneal nerve in posterolateral corner injuries of the knee. J Bone Joint Surg Br. 2005;87(9):1225-1226.
American Journal of Sports Medicine Editorial Board Spotlight 