Key points from today’s guests:

Zach Darche, treated for core muscle injury

• As a high school senior football player with pending college football scholarships, Zach worried about an injury that he thought could jeopardized his chances of playing college football.
• His dad, a former NFL player and physician, diagnosed Zach with a painful core muscle injury affecting his abdominal muscles.
• As soon as football season ended, Zach had a special surgery from a doctor at The University of Kansas Health System who developed his own special technique for fixing core muscle injuries.
• In addition, Roger Allen, a former NFL player and the strength and athletic development supervisor for The University of Kansas Health System, helped Zach with sports rehabilitation to get him in shape to play football at the University of Pennsylvania.
• The surgery and rehab have been successful and Zach has been played his freshman year.

Dr. J.P. Darche, sports medicine specialist, The University of Kansas Health System; Zach’s father

• When Zach first started experiencing his core muscle injury, we tried basic things like resting and using some anti-inflammatories and working with a physical therapist in our Performance Center.
• We checked with Dr. Scott Mullen, orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist, about surgery and decided to schedule it following the football season.
• As a former NFL player as well, it is important to get the right diagnosis as injuries are not OK to play through. In his situation, it was safe for him to play.
• When you have a kid that has an injury, get the correct diagnosis from a sports medicine specialist.
• We have fantastic physical therapists that are there to rehab injuries and post-surgery. There's a large strength and conditioning staff there, so athletic trainers can do post physical therapy rehab to help bridge the gap for you back to sport.

Dr. Scott Mullen, orthopedic surgeon, sports medicine specialist, The University of Kansas Health System

• This is probably one of the few sports medicine injuries that happen on the field or the court that is safe to play through.
• It's been called a sports hernia, which is probably the most common term that people hear. But the problem is that a sports hernia is a very confusing term because a hernia means that fat or your intestines are coming through a weak spot in your abdominal wall. And the vast majority of time with a core muscle injury that is not the case.
• The problem is where your six pack attaches to your pubic bone and where your inner thigh tendon attaches to the thigh bone, and they have this opposing shear force.
• It's a common problem. It's also commonly misdiagnosed and it can't necessarily to heal itself. The symptoms can get better with conservative measures.
• With the use of an MRI, the special surgery to correct this was done.
• What makes me unique to be able to perform this in one surgery is that I can fix all of these problems at one time without patients having to undergo anesthesia twice.

Wednesday, Mar. 20 at 8 a.m. is the next Open Mics with Dr. Stites. More research than ever is happening at KU Medical Center, but how do millions of dollars in federal grants trickle down to the everyday patient? Learn more about the explosive growth of research into cancer, Alzheimer's and so much more, and the challenge of translating research into clinical practice.

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