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Dr. Timothy Sweo examines patient Bob Kilburn, a football player from Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic High School in Jackson.

Californian Timothy Sweo, MD, worked his way across the southern portion of the country and found himself practicing orthopedics in the small, rural East Tennessee town of South Pittsburgh when he finished his medical training. Besides the change in scenery and adjusting to life in a small town, Sweo also found out that a good bit of his “Big City” training was not exactly what practicing in a small town needed.

Growing up in Los Angeles, Sweo was raised attending Catholic schools. It was one of his brothers, who was a clergyman and biology teacher, who pointed Sweo in the direction of medical school. After graduating high school, Sweo went to California State University, Northridge (CSUN or Cal State Northridge), a public university in the San Fernando Valley, and graduated in 1984 with a degree in biology.

For medical school, Sweo left “The Golden State” for “The Lone Star State” where he received his medical degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston in 1989. Although he had always known he had an interest in surgery, he had not considered orthopedics. “During our third year of medical school, we did our surgical rotations,” said Sweo. “At the end of them, I realized that of all the surgical specialties, orthopedics interested me the most.”

Not one for cold weather, Sweo remained in the southern half of the nation, going just across the Texas state line into Louisiana for postgraduate training. He completed a transitional internship year followed by a four-year residency in orthopedics at Louisiana State University Medical Center in Shreveport. “As I was finishing my residency, I called all my friends in Shreveport and asked them where they recommended as a good place to live, and most of them said Tennessee,” said Sweo. “So that is the only place I looked.” With the help of a recruiter, Sweo had two places in Tennessee to interview, one in West Tennessee and one in East Tennessee. “I went to South Pittsburgh first and really liked the country. It is near the mountains, the river and Chattanooga, so I never even looked at the other place, which just so happened to be in Jackson of all places.”

After completing his residency, Sweo did make a northern move of sorts to East Tennessee to go into private practice with Sequatchie Orthopedics in 1994. While there, he found himself treating more sports injuries and minor trauma, which was quite a change from his heavily trauma-focused residency. “I saw lots of sports injuries that I was not able to perform the appropriate surgery needed to fix the injury,” said Sweo, who had to refer many of his patients to other practices in Chattanooga for surgical treatments. “I realized I needed to get some additional training so I could better serve my patients.”

In 2006, Sweo left his private practice to complete a one-year shoulder arthroscopy and sports medicine fellowship at Sports Orthopedics and Spine under the direction of Keith Nord, MD, in Jackson. At the end of his fellowship, he joined the practice, which was founded by Nord in 1996. Sports, Orthopedics & Spine (formerly known as West Tennessee Orthopedics and Sports Medicine) offers the full range of orthopedic surgery and sports medicine. The clinic’s board-certified physicians offer innovative and effective surgical techniques that make recovery easier for the patient. The clinic was recognized by the Medical Group Management Association as one of the "Best Practices" in the nation.

“I like the support a group practice provides since it makes life much easier when you have someone sharing call with you and covering your back,” said Sweo. “When I was a sole practitioner, I was on-call every night.”

As the name implies, sports medicine is a large part of the practice, and each of the five physicians in the practice serves as the team doctor for six area high schools and college football teams. The group also holds a sports clinic each Saturday from 8 a.m. until 10 a.m. during football season where injured athletes go for evaluation. “We usually average ten athletes each Saturday at our sports clinic, and any athlete is welcome regardless of the sport they participate in,” said Sweo. “The most common sports injury we see is a shoulder or knee injury, although occasionally, we encounter a broken bone.”

Although Sweo practices primarily in the Jackson office, he sees patients one day a week at the clinic’s Dyersburg office. In addition to Dyersburg, Sports Orthopedic and Spine has offices in Lexington, Parsons and Union City. “My practice now includes the right balance for me of sports injuries, as well as regular orthopedic issues,” said Sweo.

Sweo enjoys running. He completed an iron man competition in Florida ten years ago. Today, his running is limited to shorter distances as he still occasionally competes in Olympic distance triathlons. He has also completed the Andrew Jackson half-marathon for the past three years. He and his wife, April, have two boys, a fourth grader and a first grader, who are active in Cub Scouts. He also has four other grown children who live in California.

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