Cool job: Dr. Grant Lum, performing arts physician
What do you do every day?
I take care of a lot of athletes—from professionals to weekend warriors. Then I have an entire other side of my practice where I take care of performing artists. For example, I have consulted for the adult school of the National Ballet, other dance companies, Cirque du Soleil, Mirvish Productions and other events. Sometimes I am backstage treating dancers, musicians or performers. Sometimes it’s more that an injury happens on a Saturday night, and they're sent to me early Monday.
What kind of patients do you have in the performing arts?
There are three big categories. The first is dance. Dancers are incredible athletes, and like other athletes, they get strained hamstrings, Achilles tendonitis and patellofemoral syndrome, for example. There are certain injuries unique to dance because of their extremely flexible bodies. There’s a self-selection process that happens and those (flexible) bodies show promise and continue to train and achieve high-level careers. But with that excessive hypermobility, certain problems arise, like early arthritis of the hips. Then there are instrumentalists, who are doing the same movements repeatedly, sometimes in very awkward positions, like a violinist holding a violin with the side of their neck, their chin up against their shoulder for four or five hours a day. And then you have vocalists. This sometimes falls to ENT doctors, but I deal with vocalists as well.
What was your experience working at big concerts?
One of the more interesting and demanding events I worked at years ago was an outdoor Tragically Hip concert. I was the chief physician for that venue, which meant we were taking care of all the band members, the stage crew, plus 60,000 fans. We ran a little M.A.S.H. tent and over the course of about 12 hours, saw about 800 patients. It was crazy. We saw heat stroke, injuries from falling in the mosh pit, and plenty of drug overdoses. Some of the worst were head injuries or neck injuries from falling. There was a whole category of injury we were calling positional asphyxia—mainly it was young women in the mosh pit getting crushed on all sides by bigger people. The security team would reach into the mosh pit and pull them out, and they were basically hypoxic.
What is the coolest part of your job?
We joke that most of us who do performing arts medicine are frustrated rock stars just waiting for a big break. I'm a jazz trombonist and singer so I appreciate the arts. To watch people, say from Cirque du Soleil, do the difficult things they do, and then to be able to help them to get back to it, to this thing they love, is very gratifying.
Read: Cool job: Dr. Chris Morrow, team physician, Winnipeg Blue Bombers