When she was a kid, Dr. Gloria Beim dreamed she’d one day attend the Olympics. In July, she’ll go for the fourth time — though not as an athlete.
Beim, an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist who lives in Crested Butte and works in Gunnison, has treated U.S. athletes at three previous Olympic Games and four Paralympics, which follow the Olympics by about two weeks and feature elite athletes with disabilities.
She’ll make another trip to the upcoming Summer Games in Paris, which start July 26, as Team USA’s head physician.
Beim first started working with USA Cycling in 1997, about a year after she moved to Crested Butte. From there, she volunteered to work with aspiring Olympians training in Colorado Springs and traveled with the ski team to the World University Games in Italy in 2003. That trip was particularly enjoyable, because she got to follow the team’s skiers on their practice runs.
“The whole time I was there, I was just chasing the athletes down the hill in case they needed me,” she said.
When she worked the Athens Games in 2004, Beim expected she wouldn’t get another opportunity. At the time, few doctors who weren’t on the Olympic committee’s permanent staff got to travel for two Games, she said.
“The mantra was, ‘Do one and you’re done,’ ” she said.
Since then, Beim has taken care of athletes at the Olympics in London and Sochi, in southern Russia, as well as at the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Beijing and Pyeongchang, South Korea.
At Sochi, she was chief medical officer for the U.S. delegation, overseeing 77 providers caring for 235 athletes competing in the Winter Games. (In her current role, as head physician, she’ll report to the chief medical officer and medical director.)
“Having tremendously accomplished and experienced practitioners like Dr. Beim join the Team USA games medical staff allows the (U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee) to give excellent care to U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes in some of their most important moments,” USOPC Chief Medical Officer Jon Finnoff said in a statement. “The games’ environment demands expert medical and collaboration skills. Dr. Beim has both in abundance and we are thankful she has made a commitment to Team USA an important part of her work.”
Beim thinks her ability to learn enough of the host countries’ languages to get whatever resources the athletes may need might be what made her stand out to the committee. She learned some Russian, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, Mandarin and now French, though Russian is the one that stuck.
About half of the 58 medical providers traveling with Team USA, including Beim, are volunteers, though the Olympic committee covers their airfare and other expenses that go with living overseas for two weeks. Even without pay, competition for the positions is tight, and most doctors who’ve gone to the Olympics once apply again, said Jon Mason, spokesman for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
All volunteers go through a background check, and the committee evaluates their ability to work together in a high-pressure environment, as well as their medical skills, Mason said. Most of the volunteers have previously worked with at least one team in their routine care, though they also open the process to newcomers.
“We have a pretty good idea of who we would like to take,” he said.
In addition to sports medicine doctors, the team includes athletic trainers, physical therapists, massage therapists, chiropractors and general practitioners. The host country supplies a clinic that any athlete can use, but the U.S. team generally prefers to see their own providers, Beim said. At least 80% of athletes that come in have a sports-related injury, though the medical team is prepared for the full range of possible illnesses, she said.
Most of the volunteers work in the U.S. clinic or training center in the Olympic Village, treating athletes from every sport, Mason said. A few take on more specialized roles when an event is far away, as will be the case this year, when the surfing competitions take place in Tahiti instead of France, he said.
Orthopedic surgeons don’t perform procedures in the Olympic Village, though their skills in diagnosing and stabilizing severe injuries are important in determining when an athlete needs to fly home for surgery, Mason said.
Caring for Olympians is not only an exciting experience and an honor, but also a chance to learn from the rest of the American medical team and from foreign providers they meet, Beim said.
For example, a colleague she met during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London introduced her to using ultrasound to diagnose sports injuries, and now she frequently uses that option with her regular patients at Gunnison Valley Orthopedics, she said.
The days are long, running 18 hours or more for the two weeks of the Games, but few feelings compare to seeing someone you treated just a few days before come back to the clinic with a medal around their neck, Beim said.
“You go there with a sense, ‘This is going to be such an amazing experience,’ and then multiply it by a thousand,” she said.
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