Mason Young
Tulsa World OU Sports Reporter
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NORMAN — Dr. Steven Shin is quickly becoming an internet cult hero among Sooner Nation.
ESPN reported that Shin is performing hand surgery on injured Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer Wednesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. OU fans are begging Shin on social media to get the Heisman Trophy frontrunner Mateer back in action fast.
Who is this Dr. Shin? ESPN’s Pete Thamel noted that Shin is considered one of the country’s leading hand and wrist surgeons and has operated on the likes of Drew Brees, Stephen Curry and Mike Trout. Shin also operated on Oklahoma City Thunder forward Jalen Williams’ injured wrist earlier this year.
Here’s more information on Shin from his bio on Cedars-Sinai’s website:
“Dr. Steven Shin is an orthopaedic surgeon who specializes in the treatment of athletes’ hand and upper limb injuries. He received his (bachelor of arts, master of medical science and doctor of medicine) degrees from Brown University. Dr. Shin completed his orthopaedic surgery residency at NYU-Hospital for Joint Diseases, followed by a hand surgery fellowship at Stanford. He is executive vice chairman and professor of orthopaedicsurgery at Cedars-Sinai.
“Dr. Shin is on the faculty of the Cedars-Sinai orthopaedic surgery residency program and the Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Hand and Upper Extremity Surgical Fellowship at Cedars-Sinai. He is chair of the hand and wrist program committee for the (American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons) and on the editorial panels for (the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery) and Orthopaedic Today. Dr. Shin consults regularly for teams and athletes from all over the United States and world.”
Shin, with 26 years of experience in his field, has a 4.9 star rating from patients who’ve complimented his work on Cedars-Sinai’s website.
There’s also a blog post about Shin published by Cedars-Sinai, wherein the good doctor explains how he gets athletes with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in their thumb back in action at half the standard time.
In a typical thumb UCL surgery, the article explains, the torn ligament is sutured and placed in a cast for four to six weeks.
“Athletes particularly dislike being in casts, and on top of that they can’t return to play for sometimes up to 10-12 weeks,” Shin said in the article.
Instead, Shin sometimes uses “internal brace augmentation,” where an implant helps repair the torn ligament faster.
“The procedure involves a synthetic tape that is about a millimeter in width but exceedingly strong,” the article reads. “Here’s how it works: As in conventional surgery, Shin drills a hole in the bone at the location of the tear. What makes this technique different is that he drills a second hole near the attachment site of the ligament on the thumb metacarpal.
“An anchor that secures the suture and the tape is placed in the first hole. The suture is then used to repair the ligament as is done traditionally. What’s different about Shin’s technique is the tape is then placed over the ligament and secured with a second anchor in the metacarpal, completing the internal brace construct.
“Because patients can start moving the thumb within days, it also mitigates some of the negative consequences of prolonged immobilization, such as stiffness and muscle atrophy. Range of motion returns much sooner, too.”
Shin conjured up this new method of thumb surgery after seeing its success within ankle surgeries. Patients who had the ankle operation were able to bear weight and jump within days, rather than weeks, according to the article.
“I thought there might be a way to adapt it for UCL tears in thumbs, a very common injury that can sideline athletes for almost a whole season,” Shin said in the article. “A thumb UCL repaired with an internal brace is several times stronger than the standard repair with suture alone.
“It doesn’t elevate the risk of infection or other complications. Some people are more comfortable with conventional surgery, and that’s fine too. This newer technique just obviates the need for a cast after surgery and can get the patient back to activity much sooner. Although not all hand surgeons perform this technique, it’s already grown by leaps and bounds in popularity.”
It’s unclear whether Shin’s unique UCL surgery has any application to Mateer’s situation — the OU quarterback’s injury reportedly is a broken bone, with some accounts specifying a broken thumb.
mason.young@tulsaworld.com
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Mason Young
Tulsa World OU Sports Reporter
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