13. Dr. Jeff Davidson | Behind The Scenes of Treating UFC Fighters & High Performance Athletes

Every high performance athlete is looking at, how do I get that little bit of an edge? I think I've probably worked like 32,000 rounds. First time I ever saw an ear torn off. It did catch my attention. It's a tough sport. Getting to know you has really opened my eyes to how you really can optimize the body. Whatever you think is healthy, you can get healthier. Enjoy what you do every day and to feel productive every day. That's the ultimate human.

Ultimate human. Welcome to the Ultimate Human podcast. I'm your host, Gary Brecke, human biologist, where we go down the road of everything. Anti aging, longevity, bio optimization, and everything in between. I'm, I'm super excited for this, this, this podcast because I've got a very good friend of mine, Dr. Jeffrey Davidson, on. He's a medical doctor, and not just any medical doctor. I've got your CV here, so I hope you're sitting down. You have a few minutes for me to read. But he's the chairman and medical director. Most people know him as the chairman and medical director for the ufc, but he is also the medical director for the emergency department at Valley Hospital right here in Vegas, which is a pretty, pretty big emergency department. Tough. The Contender Series. He's the medical director and EMS of EMS Medical West. He's also the medical director of CCT and AMR event medicine for amr. He's the medical director for Air Med Las Vegas. Are you still.

It's actually changed over to Guardian Air, but still doing that.

So this is like the medevac.

Yeah, this is the medevac. Okay. Medical director for them this morning.

Okay. And he's an emergency consultant for the Vegas Golden Knights and the lead at UNC Inc. And the NFL Las Vegas as well.

Yeah.

So what do you do with the NFL Las Vegas?

Work with the NFL as the. What's called the unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant. And that is the group of physicians within the NFL that is unaffiliated with the team and helps identify, recognize, and then, if needed, treat, you know, help get those concussion athletes out of the game.

Okay.

And get them in the right course.

You're on the sideline for some of these NFL games, too. And I might add, you're. You're going to be on the sideline for the Formula One.

For the Formula One. The Formula One will be coming to.

Las Vegas, maybe the coolest physician's job in the country. Like, if you're a doctor and you're watching this, you're like, hey, I Want that job. You know, I think a lot of physicians would say, you know, this is like, the pinnacle of a career, to actually be able to showcase your talents and make a real difference in something as massive as the ufc. And, you know, as I look at the medical side of what goes on in the ufc, that's a lot of what I want to talk about today. I don't think a lot of people realize in the. In the realm of sanctioned sports, it's a really relatively safe sport.

It's a very safe sport.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that's well said. I. I think a lot of people see the sport, and they see two athletes in a cage that we're, like, we're sitting in, Right. And they think it's no rules and not timed, and there's just this blood and potential for injury, whether it's soft tissue injury, whether it's musculoskeletal injury, whether it's neuro head injury. And I don't think they realize that all that is being closely monitored between the referees, the physicians, the rules, the regulations, the weight classes, how we even get into the cage. Yeah, it's also closely monitored. It's a very safe sport.

Yeah. And, I mean, it's actually a lot safer than boxing in a lot of ways. Right. I mean, less concussive injuries, less severe head injuries.

There have been papers pushed out, published by the Cleveland Clinic, that have done some comparisons of careers in boxing versus careers in mixed martial art, particularly the ufc. And there has been tremendous advantage to being in this sport in the sense that it is less head injury over time and less concussions.

Yeah. And now you've been with the UFC for a long time?

I have.

Kind of pre UFC almost. Right. I mean, it's always been the ufc. So right around what time did you join and. And talk a little bit about your journey with the ufc, Dana White, you know, the Fertitta brothers, and how it matured into you being, you know, the chief medical director for. For the ufc. Like, what was that journey like? Because you've seen some stuff.

Yeah, I have, and I. It. You know, it. It doesn't seem like it's been 30 years, but it has been 30 years already. You know, when I came to Las Vegas in the early 90s, I was fortunate enough to get involved with the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Got a tremendous experience, a great learning decade of working many boxing events. And back then, we would do K1 and Muay Thai events and lots of kind of different combat sport events.

So you were with The State Commission.

I was with the Nevada State Athletic Commission as one of the ringside physicians. And I had great mentors that really taught me a lot and really taught me how to appreciate the athletes, how, you know, what their dedication is and how they have really dedicated to get into the sport and to get into the actual fight and then how we take care of them. And right around 2000, 2001, the UFC came to Las Vegas, and there was this amazing vision by Dana White and Lorenzo and Frank.

Was that about the time that they bought the ufc?

That's about the time that they purchased the ufc, brand or name, brought it to Las Vegas. And I remember their first real tasks were, let's develop weight classes. Let's develop a competition where there's referees judging weight classes. There has to be physicians, obviously, cage side. It needs to be developed into sanctioned, different commissions from the States. It has to be developed into a sport so that we can all enjoy what we now know today. And so it's really started off in an infancy as a vision, I think.

Yeah.

From Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta and Dana White to what we all just take for granted today is a worldwide amazing sport. Yeah, it's amazing that growth's amazing.

Those guys had the vision to take something that was such a diamond in the rough and say, we can really pull this out of the backyard in the basement and really put it on, on. On prime time. I read something not too long ago that it was at the time the fastest growing sanctions sport in the world. You know, it's just on this meteoric rise.

Well, I remember when Mark Ratner's task was to get us sanctioned in every state. And, you know, it started off we were sanctioned in Nevada, we were sanctioned in New Jersey. And slowly we, Mark Ratner would work and we would work ourselves across the USA until every single state wanted the UFC to come and participate. And then we did the same thing internationally. Mark Ratner and a group of individuals from the promotion got out there internationally, and we started off in London and we started off in Canada, and Montreal was one of our first international fights. And from those early cards, the growth now is, as we know, everywhere. From Australia this weekend, Abu Dhabi coming up, Brazil in between, and we just finished going to Shanghai, Paris. I mean, it's just, it's an international.

Global sport, and you're ringside at nearly every U.S. you know, fight. Right?

I mean, I have found the energy to get to most every domestic fight. So, yes, for most all the domestic fights within the usa, I'll Travel and be their cage side with the commission that we're working with. And then for many of the international events, I travel and kind of, like, try and spot check the different areas. So I have consultants in all these areas. You know, I have a consultant in Asia, I have a consultant in Brazil, the consultant in Europe. And I work with those consultants to kind of make sure they're following the ufc. I'll say safety guidelines, and then about every second or third international event that occurs in those areas, I will actually go be there at cageside with them and just kind of be there with them to kind of get some reassurance and make sure the resources are there and that we're as safe there as we are here in the Nevada.

And is. Is it safe to say that in. In. In the States, on every Contender series fight, in every UFC fight, that you're signing off on that fighter?

Yeah, I.

It is very sort of your name on the bottom line, right?

Yes. It's, you know, it's interesting. People say, what do you do every night? And my wife, Jeie knows I'm on the computer almost every single night. And she, you know, she. She. Their favorite question is, how long you got? Cause I'm usually up there for hours. And what I'm actually doing is going through all the imaging, the MRI, the MRAs, the serology panels that are sent, the EKGs, the chest X rays. All of that information is brought in and focused by the medical team of the ufc, which is led by a great group that works with me, and it's focused into the medical charts of each individual athlete. And then I review it all, and if we find something or I find something particularly that needs addressed, we. Whether it's an abnormality on an image, such as an mri, whether it's an EKG abnormality that I think doesn't just fit an athletic heart, then we forward that off to a consultant to get clearance so that by the time the athletes are cleared for a fight with the ufc, we have put them through a very good medical screening for physical exam, for eye exam, blood test, imaging of the brain, heart tests, if needed.

Yeah, you were telling me they even do, like, virology panels for. For viral pathogens.

Yeah, we'll look for anything.

Just making sure they're as healthy as they can possibly be, you know, to get in there.

And from a medical standpoint, we're. We're absolutely doing everything. And, you know, that's on top of training. Then they've got, you know, management by their coaches and their Trainers and their staff. So these athletes are so fine tuned and the majority of times prior to stepping into the cage for the, for the actual event, it, it, there's a tremendous amount of oversight and talk a.

Little bit about what's going on behind the scenes in beyond the medical screening. Like, you know, you go to the UFC performance center and there's physical therapy, there's altitude training rooms, there's trainers, there's chefs, there's DEXA scan machines that are looking at every possible level of visceral fat and water retention and, and, and their body mass index and all of these things so that they're, they're eating, they're taking in the right number of calories, they're, they're, they're training in a way that's not going to actually cause them injury and they're safely, you know, gaining and losing, you know, weight to make weight classes. So talk a little bit about what's going on behind the scenes other than the medical screening to like really get these athletes ready for the ring.

I think you, I think you touched on so many incredible points just now, and I don't even know if the audience picked up on what you just said. Yeah, it's, listen, these athletes, you know, walk around incredibly in shape all year round, right? But suddenly when we're, when they're, you know, picked up for a fight and they know they're going to make a specific weight on a specific day to fight, then that full training camp goes into full, you know, full speed for four weeks prior. And strength and conditioning coaches from the performance institute are there to assist nutrition people are there, are there to assist every step of the way of that four week training so that it peaks right at the specific time to make weight and then to rehydrate. Science, it's a whole cycle, It's a science. We've done it over and over and over. And as I tell people, it's not the first time. Like it's every weekend we hit these goals with these fighters. Every weekend, every weight class, we're incredibly efficient. I mean, people may say, yeah, I've seen a fighter miss weight. And you're right, nothing's, nothing's perfect. There's times where a fighter will miss weight, but overall the efficiency, it's in the high 90 percentile of how efficient we are with the athletes making weight, recovering from their weight, I'll say weight cut for the week and then being rehydrated, re nutritioned and stepping into the cage the next night and performing at Such a level.

Yeah, because it's like decades ago. You used to see, you know, in, in a lot of different kinds of professional sports. I mean, you know, guys walking into the ring that look like they were stoned or wasted, I mean, they're just, you could tell they were depleted, they hadn't rehydrated properly, they hadn't renutrified properly and they really were not ready to be in a, you know, combat competitive sport. So talk a little bit about, like, what is the, what is a safe way to cut weight? I mean, how, how much weight are these guys losing and how much are they putting back safely and what kind of time frame before. Before.

Well, without, without shocking everyone around. I mean, you know, what can a weight cut be in a week? Within a week, it can be anywhere from five pounds all the way up to maybe 15 or 20 pounds. Wow. But again, through that kind of training, we've taught them and they've learned how to slowly bring down the weight, to become very lean, to develop the muscle, the endurance, what they're going to need for the event. In the last couple of days, there's a lot of science that's gone into how to upload with some water and then lose some water weight so that there's a specific weight class that might be the goal or the target that we're going to get and then they can rehydrate after that. But I mean, you've been to our events, so you've seen after the weight, after the physical exam and after we weigh them in, there's a very calculated way that we rehydrate with specific electrolyte formulas and drinks, very specific nutrition. The way we bring them back up from simple digestibles all the way to the protein and complex meal so that they are able to put back in the nutrition in a very safe manner.

Yeah.

So that no one gets a GI upset or some type of illness where.

The electrolyte imbalance or Correct. Yeah. Something severe especially that would happen if they lost a little bit of weight during the fight, you know, or they, they get dehydrated during the fight and they can't continue.

And every athlete, which I don't know that everyone understands, every athlete, when they check in the week of the event, their weight is monitored immediately. So we know exactly what, what they weigh when they step in. So we know exactly what's going to occur that week as far as how much weight they may have to lose to make the weight. We begin to calculate how the nutrition and the rehydration process is gonna be right after they make the weight Friday. I mean, this is all calculated that week and it's all taken care of for them. I mean, a lot of people that have been to our events will see after the weigh ins that we have a kind of a, I call it the brown bag. But the brown bag is full of wonderful nutrition and hydration products. And hydration. Yeah. And it's amazing. And the athletes know how to take this all in in a very slow and a purposeful process. And they're, I mean, you see them the next night, you see them on Saturdays. They're. They're high level athletes performing at 100%.

Yeah, you know, it's, it, it really is astounding to me how much technology and science and care and detail goes into what's happening behind the scenes. You know, again, you go to the performance center and there's altitude training rooms and there's force multiplier plates in the floor and there's physical therapy and there's, you know, these DEXA scans that are measuring every, every facet, you know, their body composition. So they know exactly their macros that they can eat and how much hydration they have. And there's cold plunges and red light therapy. I mean, essentially everything that can make an average human a superhuman. Everything that they need to legally recover and perform, you know.

Yeah. Another thing that you touched on was a DEXA scan. I mean, we're able to help individuals know their exact, you know, what, what.

Their body talks about, what a DEXA scan. Well, a lot of people know what that is.

DEXA scans are great, a great way for an individual to get a body composition and know what their bone density is, what their soft tissue muscle density is, what their water weight composition is. And so we can help them better understand, well, what is a realistic goal for a weight class. So that if you walk around and your walking weight is 170 or whatever it may be, is it realistic to be a fighter that can fight at the 150s or lower or higher because.

It may be dangerous to go too low. Correct.

Because based on your body density, you may not be able to get to a specific weight class. It may be better to stay. Yeah, right. So safely, it may be better to stay up a weight class. But these are all things that we work with them and in the training and in the, you know, the endurance part of that four weeks, they'll start to understand what they can get their body safely to. They also understand that when they get into this cage the next night or the next day, it's, you know, three rounds or five rounds. And it's a high endurance, a high active sport. Yeah, um, you know, you, you've all watched it and so it takes an immense amount of endurance and, and reserve to get through that. And that's not something you can do if the week before was a, a bad weight cut or a difficult time getting to a specific weight class.

Right, right. That's gonna obviously compromise performance.

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So, you know, in the performance center, there's so many different modalities in there. One of the things that was fascinating to me that kind of struck me was this altitude training room.

Yes.

Right. I've never seen anything like this. I mean, I've heard about hypoxic training and altitude training. I, I have a cabin at 10,500ft, but I've never seen a room that you can go in and shut the door and dial the altitude.

Correct, Correct.

So what's, what's the theory behind high altitude training, especially for these kind of athletes?

So I mean, I think everyone's answer that is this. If, if you train at high altitude, it can, after time, it takes four to six weeks to acclimate, but the body begins, we think to develop like a healthier hemoglobin concentration so you get this higher oxygen carrying capacity, which then may translate into greater endurance, greater energy. And there has been a lot of studies that people that live at high altitudes and some of them have these longer, healthier lives and, and, or have a heavier endurance capability, especially if they.

Come down to, especially if they come.

Back down to sea level, which most of our fights are. And I'll tell you the opposite that we've learned. Watch some of our fights when we take these athletes to a high altitude and they haven't trained at a high altitude.

Where was the one?

Mexico City. Mexico City.

Mexico City.

Denver. We've take, you know, we've had fights in these higher altitude cities and it wipes the athletes out. Now, the athletes to get in before four to six weeks because it takes about four weeks to acclimate. They're much more ready for that altitude and they do better in that fight. So there is a theory that if you train at that higher altitude, you can produce this deeper concentration of hemoglobin that's your blood cells that produces or translates into a higher concentration of oxygen carrying capacity, which means maybe a higher endurance, which gives you that edge in that fight.

Right. Especially if you're so evenly matched.

So if we can measure all that and reproduce some of that and give you that advantage where you can kind of just build even that little edge.

Right.

Which every athlete's looking for. Right. Every high performance athlete is looking at. Just how do I get that little bit of an edge?

Right.

That's one way.

Okay, that makes sense. And then the other modality I wanted to touch on quickly was the hyperbaric chamber. And you know, because one is taking you up higher, reducing pressure, and the.

Other one diving you down.

Yeah, diving you down below. And so what's the theory behind increasing pressure, especially after something like a CTE or, you know, traumatic brain injury or a concussion or even just to recover after a, you know, difficult fight or workout.

So, so there's a lot of athletes across all sports, all professional sports. And the literature's mixed. I mean, the science isn't perfect. It's 50, 50. But the athletes and the, and the, the people that believe in the hyperbaric believe this, that when you get into a chamber that can take you down to 1 or 1.5 atmosphere of pressure and you can force that oxygen deeper into the circulation, the microcirculation, that you get a better recovery because all the cells are starving for oxygen that are inflamed for the recovery process, post fight, post combat sport, post contact sport, whatever it may be. So a hyperbaric dive, one hour a day, five, six days a week, for a couple of weeks, post an event like a UFC fight or a. Another professional sport, that's the theory behind that, that you can drive that oxygen deeper into the capillaries, help force that good nutrition, good oxygen, nutrition, deep into the systems of the body where maybe it can't be reached at atmospheric pressure.

So when would be the best time to use it? Immediately after either a fight or a really intense training session or a fight where you've actually taken some battering and you might have a little bit of a concussion. That's the time to use it, sort of immediately thereafter. Help those tissues repair before further damage sets in.

You're right on. You're spot on. And a lot of people use it for maintenance. They just use it for maintenance daily throughout the week, a couple times a week. But right after those tough events, right after those, like you said, a tough fight or a tough event or a tough training session, that's the time to get into a 1 to 1.5 atmospheric dive, as we say, for an hour, and really drive that oxygen into the deep circulation.

So, you know, in your. In. In the years that you've been, you know, associated with the ufc, what. What is a. What are some of the typical things that you see on a regular basis, your emergency train? So nothing's going to surprise you, nothing's going to, you know, freak you out?

Nothing? Yeah, not too much.

But what are some of the things that you've put back on, put back together, you know, mended, repaired, realigned?

You know, it's, it's, you know, everyone has some moments.

Show me some pictures of years falling off.

And yes, we had some earlier time when we were working out, and we were looking through my phone of some pictures, and I remember the first couple.

And we'll throw some of these up.

We'll throw some up. But there's been several times where, you know, as the fighters develop these kind of cauliflower ears, as they call them, which is, you know, kind of that years and years of being hit in the ear, and that soft tissue turns into that hard tissue, and it's called cauliflower. And that tissue's very fibrous, and it's not real flexible. And, you know, with the right punch, the right kick or the right force, that whole tissue can avulse or tear off. So I think the first time I ever saw an ear kind of Nearly a vulcar torn off, meaning just dangling. Yeah, kind of hanging off. It did catch my attention. Yeah. Now that I've seen it multiple times, I understand. Okay, we can suture that back on. So, yeah, that. That has happened.

Do you do it on site?

Sometimes we'll do it on site. Sometimes we will send it off to the emergency department where we're working with in whatever commission, and we'll get it done there just because it's a little bit cleaner, quieter environment. But, you know, you bring up a great point. Most of the suturing at all our events is done on site. So wherever we travel, in addition to the physicians at cageside, the commission physicians or the physicians, whatever country we're in, there's usually a dedicated suture physician. A lot of times this is a plastic surgeon, general surgeon, emergency medicine physician. And their challenge for the night is suturing. And we've had some excellent people throughout the world, throughout this country, just in this state that just are. They're here and they're suturing. And if you go back 15, 20 years, we didn't have that. When the individuals or when the athletes were injured and there was a laceration, we had to send them off to the emergency department.

They just went by themselves.

Yeah, well, we sent them to an emergency department. But, you know, you can sit in an emergency department for a prolonged time and you might have got an intern or maybe a medical student would assist. And then we realized, look, we can do better than that. And so now it's been a long time, but we have hired, you know, physicians that specifically suture at every event for us now. So just another level of incredible care that we provide right there at these events.

What would you consider to be some of the most difficult cases that you faced? Well, the difficult, really difficult case.

Yeah, the. The tough case. There's a couple things that come to mind. So, you know, no one wants to see an athlete that spends so much time getting prepared for an event have a sudden injury that just automatically, we all know is going to shut down the fight. So everyone can think of. There has been a couple of times where there's been, for example, like an ankle fracture, dislocation. And the ones that come to most people's minds are the Conor McGregor or the Chris Weidman Silver. Anderson Silva was the first one. Yeah, that we all had in Las Vegas years and years ago. But that type of traumatic injury, which doesn't represent really what happens in this sport often at all, it gets all.

The press and the publicity does get.

All the eyes and. But, you know, you hate to see that. And. And, you know, when I think of the thousands and thousands of rounds that we've done and that I've watched and that that's only happened three or four times.

Right.

It really puts it in perspective that that's not the type of injury we see.

And the other athlete doesn't like to see that either.

Correct.

You know, the level of respect in the sport, you know, they. They actually don't like to see them not able to continue because, you know, some.

These athletes want to win by a decision, by a knockout, by a tko.

Right.

They've all trained for that type of ending. They don't want to see it end because of a medical stoppage. So, you know, those type of injuries, as infrequent as they are, they're hard to watch. You know, and we've had some other injuries, and we've all seen them where an eye injury specifically will have to stop a fight because medically it's unsafe to let that fight continue. And to the average viewer, it doesn't look like maybe potentially a dangerous. But, you know, when you're talking about someone's vision and eye injuries, we're extremely careful.

So, you know, you're working in the emergency department. You're working as, you know, the. The medical director for the ufc. You know, you're ringsided all these fights. Like, what do you. What do you do outside of the ring? Like, what do you do to, like, blow off steam? What are you, like, some hobbies, some interests that you have, you know, broken bodies.

Yeah. I don't want to sound boring, but.

I know we both love the cold plunge. Yeah, we talked about that today.

I don't want to sound boring, but you know what I do? I mean, I. I love to work out. I work out every day. The people that know me, the people here at the UFC, they can count on Dr. Davidson walking through at about four or five.

I see you every time I'm here. I saw you today. We worked out today, and I think I got the cold plunge in the steam room, and you didn't.

I did the red light. Oh, you did the red light today. I did the oxygen.

I saw you with the oxygen mask on.

I did the oxygen and the red light. So I try and always do as many times a week as I can. The red light and the oxygen. I like. You love the cold plunge. Listen, I think we've both agreed the best drug out there is the steam room and the cold plunge. I think we've said that several times.

Yeah, so it's so true. We call it our. We both call it our drug of choice. Absolutely. And so, you know, hey, guys, if.

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You know, making a little bit of a transition here. You know, you and I have, you know, shared some clients in common. I can't call them patients. I'm not licensed to practice medicine. You are, but we've, we've shared some clients in common and, you know, we've actually learned a lot from each other.

Absolutely.

And I have a deep level of respect for your surgical experience and just your clinical experience, your emergency experience. But, you know, you're very much from the allopathic medical side. Correct. And I would consider myself more from the human biology and, you know, functional medicine, even though, again, I'm not licensed to practice medicine. What do you see as some of the differences between modern medicine, allopathic medicine, and, and this functional medical approach and what interests you about it?

Well, I'll tell you, I mean, getting to know you really opened up my eyes and really opened up my world as to how all these, all these treatments can come together. And, you know, patients always ask me in the emergency department, does a specific type of physician help them? And they'll mention a chiropractor or a physical therapist or whatever specific kind of clinician they're asking about. And I'm like, you know, whatever works to make you a better functional person, healthier, feel better, you know, live better every day. That's what's good for you.

Yeah.

But I think getting to know you, especially over these last years, has really opened to my eyes to how you really can optimize the body. And again, so I practice medicine. A lot of times, though, we've talked about this, you know, in the emergency department, I practice medicine when there's already end organ damage, when there's already kind of pathology that's taken process and taken form. And, you know, at that point we're there to either help slow or maybe, you know, we can intervene. We hope to intervene.

You're trying to preserve life at that point.

And I think. Correct. But I think, you know, really what I've learned from you is there's a whole. There's a whole arena of prevention out there. There's a whole arena of, you know, whatever you think is healthy, you can get healthier.

Yeah.

And that's what I think we've learned and started to work on.

I've been very, you know, you know, it's very humbling to me to just see how, you know, the level at which you've embraced it. I mean, you've been very humble about the limitations on your expertise and the areas where your core competencies lie. And I think we've worked really, really well together. I'm excited.

Listen, I know about our job. I have seen you do great things with traditional allopathic medicine, treating blood pressure. And then because the individual takes on a healthier lifestyle, which has pretty much been guided and outlined by you, the blood pressure just comes down. No longer need to be on specific medications. So listen, I'm not saying everyone is going to have such great success to such levels. True. But I truly think if you live the lifestyle that you and I both promote, get the proper amount of rest, the proper amount of nutrition, get the proper amount of exercise, be optimistic, be positive. I do think that settles all these.

I always talk about just getting back to the basics. Whole foods, exercise, and then the little, you know, adjuncts, you know, sunlight, breath work, cold showers, cold plunges, saunas, steam rooms, all those things that just elevate your mood, they elevate your emotional state. They actually, they raise, you know, your. Your level of bio optimization. Right. They actually make you a healthier individual. And then you don't end up in your department.

And listen, I, I listen, we both know everyone's going to get sick. Everyone's going to get a sore throat or a, you know, a chest congestion, upper respiratory infection, something. And so that's what, that's what medicine is good for. Right. There are specific treatments out there for some of these pathologies that, that we want to treat.

Yeah.

Because then we can prevent more serious illness, but there's a whole pathway to stay healthy, to prevent and offset a lot of that.

So I want, I want to get back to your career a little bit and thank you for what you said. But, you know, in, in, in your career, like, has there ever been a time where you've been shocked so much, either by an injury or by a patient's pathology you, like, really felt like. And I don't exactly know what to do here.

You know, listen, I hate to say it, but in emergency medicine, it's really the practice. Medicine. The practice of medicine.

Yeah.

And like I said, I've been doing it nearly 30 years, so not a lot. Shocking you now, I can honestly say, when I'm working with the medical students now, I think I've seen the majority of cases, but there are definitely times when people come in and just the human body things don't present like they're supposed to. Not everyone read the book. And so they don't present like the book tells me they're supposed to present. But, you know, I've seen very young people with very advanced disease, which typically bothers me and shocks me, and it does to most of us. Right. I mean, it's hard to see someone young with an advanced process. It's, it's just as hard to see someone that you think is older but in great shape and then have something suddenly happen.

Right.

You know, in the emergency department, unfortunately, you got to be prepared for anything that comes in.

And you think you're. Your emergency department experience obviously trickles over into your ringside experience, so that, I mean, you're pretty much prepared to handle anything that comes out of that.

Yeah, I mean, listen, I think, you know, some of the best physicians for this sport and for other kind of combat or sports of that nature. Emergency physicians are very well adapted. I mean, we have a very good sense of what type of musculoskeletal injury could be soft tissue injury, could be eye injury, ocular injury, obviously closed head injury, or tbi, traumatic brain injury or concussion injury, as we all refer to it. So all those pieces of pathology or injury potential that that could occur in these, these contact sports we see in the emergency department every day. Yeah, so it's almost like training.

You're getting a lot more practice there. So when it happens ringside, you're like, this is a walk in the park.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean we, we listen. I tell people when they, when they enter into a contact sport, it's, it's a tough sport. Don't, you know, you don't expect to step into the cage and potentially not have an injury. Yeah, I mean, we all hope for no injuries, but you know, when we see a soft tissue injury, a laceration, when we see a bad knockout, when we see potential, you know, musculoskeletal injury of the knee or the elbow or the hand, we know it's potentially something that could happen in this type of sport, can happen in many sports, whether it's rugby, hockey, football, all those sports are very heavy context sport.

You know, it's interesting, we had a conversation the other night and we were talking about some of the advances in orthopedics and medicine. Biologics like platelet rich plasma, using a patient's own platelets from their own bloodstream, concentrating them and, and, and putting them into the site of injury. So kind of taking all the healing power of the human body and focusing it at one area, knee, a hip, shoulder, a rotator cuff, to kind of accelerate healing. Do you find that, you know, that's, that's become an increasingly larger part of your practice is using some of these things like plate, platelet rich plasma to help accelerate the time frame for healing? Because we talked about how there were injuries even 15 years ago that would have been career ending, that now are just season ending.

Correct.

So, you know, we've got, we've made so many strides in like ACLs and MCLs and, and surgical repair. So what, what are some of those injuries today that 15 years ago would have been career ending, but are now are just season ending?

I mean, it's, it's. First of all, the technology and the, the surgeons have advanced so much in the last 20 years, the orthopedic world, the shoulder injuries and the knee injuries in particular that we used to see 25 years ago, 30 years ago, particularly the interventions were so much larger, the surgery was so much larger, whether it was just the operation itself, the site of the incision, you mean, just going.

In to do the repair, it's just.

Doing a lot of damage, a more invasive type of procedure. And so now with arthroscopic and minimally invasive procedures on the Knee and on the shoulder, which are some of the big joints that we typically see in this sport. The actual intervention to repair is so minimally invasive and so well done by this group of orthopedic surgeons that I work with throughout this country and throughout the international areas that that's just the first starting point that just already begins to advance. How quickly then, how aggressive we are with physical therapy and rehab. So quickly. Early mobilization, early mobilization, quickly building up the strength, compensation of the other muscles, flexibility, things like that. And then like you mentioned already, like for example, the PRP or the platelet rich plasma. I mean, some of the systems out there that are able to so purely concentrate the platelets, which we know have wonderful growth.

Yeah, it's not the platers and platelets themselves, it's what's in the platelet. Right.

All their growth factors. And you've got all these wonderful other cells in there, the monocytes, the neutrophils, the cytokines, and these all are highly concentrated. So then they're kind of injected into the area of the joint or that space. It just provides that wonderful rich environment of healing. So we're able to generate such a faster recovery. But you're right, these shoulder and knee injuries, for example, that sometimes would have been career ending or possibly a year or two out. Some of these players, some of these athletes are back in six, seven, eight months.

That's incredible.

It's amazing.

Lazy altar and be back on the field in six, seven, eight months. I mean, I think sometimes for UFC fans, you know, they see severe injuries and, you know, breaks and things like that. And then the next year, the fighters.

Back, back in the ring, they don't really fight. I mean, I think they feel like.

A lot's going on behind the scenes.

Oh, yeah, a lot of work, but it's amazing. And the athletes know, because they know when specific injuries occur, and I kind of review it with them and like, you know, this is going to take us six to nine months to get you back out there, but we'll get you back out there.

Right.

And so for them, it's a true six to nine months. The rest of us don't see it because we kind of like lose track of that fighter for a few months, but the next thing they know, athlete's been put back into an event and here they are again.

Yeah, back at 100%.

100%.

That's. That's amazing.

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So you're a young physician, you're, you're watching this podcast. You know, you're obviously inspired by the kind of career that you, you have because you know, there's the lights and the glamour and the stage and it's, it's actually really cool to be able to be a part of something like the ufc. I mean, no, no doubt about that. So what advice would you give to a young physician that wants to go on a sports medicine career path? Like what, what mistakes did you make? What decisions did you make that were, that were good decisions?

Like, you know, you listen because I get asked Everywhere we go. Right. How did you become the UFC physician? Yeah, And I said, you know, listen, the main thing I can tell everyone is you just have to be willing to dedicate and put in the time. That's just the main thing. I mean, most physicians have already shown that they have a dedication to going to medical school, going to a residency, doing a training or fellowship, so they get to an area where they want to be. So if you get into the sports world, you have to be willing to understand that it could be time. And, you know, I think everyone thinks, well, you're so lucky. You work with the UFC and you work with other, these other professional sports. But I didn't always work with the, the high level professional sports. I mean, I started off with amateur and Golden Glove boxing and USA Boxing, and I, you know, I did.

Well, you joined at UFC like 33, right?

Yeah. And I, and I did come into UFC very early, but, you know, and I think we're, we're at 293 coming up. It's 293 coming up this weekend.

Yeah.

And, but, but I think you have to be willing to put in the time and the work like anything else. Like, how did you get good? It's years of experience.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, it's that recognition. I've seen many, I've just seen so many rounds. I think I've probably worked. I think I calculated with someone, I'm well over 32,000 rounds.

Wow.

So, I mean, when you, when you think about how many rounds of fighting I've. I've just watched. Right. There's just not a lot of people that have watched that many rounds.

Yeah, yeah. Not, not your most ardent UFC fan can probably say they've watched a lot of rounds. 32,000 rounds.

So I, so I tell that, you know, all the sports, individuals, there's so many ways to get involved. At the high school level, the college level, the amateur level, the club level, get involved, start working, start building your experience so that when you get an opportunity to work in a high level, let's say a professional level, you've got a confidence because you've been doing it for years.

Yeah. Any big mentors come to mind for you, like kind of along your career path?

Oh, I've had a lot of great mentors. I mean, you know, within this world alone, Mark Ratner has been a tremendous mentor. He has really taught me how to see the whole sport, the whole athlete to step back and take that 10,000 foot view. So he's been wonderful not to sound too at home, but Dana's had a great influence on me. Dana White has also taught me a lot. Hunter Campbell has taught me a lot. There has been physicians that I've worked with throughout the country that have looked at the sport from a different set of eyes, because maybe they're a different specialty. They're an orthopedic surgeon, or they're a neurologist, or they're a PM&R physician. And so all those experiences have built, like, my understanding of how the sport can be managed and how we can make it even safer than it is and continue that safety record.

Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, I've had a lot of mentors along my. My path too. And I think it's also important to kind of highlight how. How do you maintain your own state of optimal health? I mean, with all that you have going on? Emergency room has got to be very draining, emotionally and physically. I mean, just. Just the hours and the demand, but the. The emotion of having people in their, you know, some of their worst moments, some of their most traumatic experiences.

So what.

What are some of the things that you do outside of the cage, so to speak, to keep yourself in shape and keep your. Your. Your, you know, mental condition.

So I think it's important to be somewhat regimen and the people that you.

Are, like a precision guided missile man, you'd be the easiest guy to put a hit out on because you're in the same places at the same time.

Exactly. Most. Either you're in my personal life and my wife and kids know, or you're working with me in the er, My nurses know, or the individuals all around the UFC know me, but I'm very, very precision and probably too predictable. But I think it's important that you have a habit of living healthy. I mean, you need to get up, you need to eat. Most people know me. I eat a very basic diet. I'm very narrow on what I ingest and what I like. I have a very strong sleep pattern. It's very set from time going to bed to time getting up, and I don't oversleep.

That's huge.

Yeah, that is huge. I think that's huge. And I listen to you a lot about that. But I'm very set on. You've got to have this very set pattern of sleep, and it can't be that you skip it too much. Now. There are times, because of the travel and just the work in itself, that your sleep patterns are disrupted. And then again, and I know you and I emphasize it, but you've got to have an exercise pattern, and it's gotta be religious. It's gotta be seven days a week. It's gotta be every day. And it has to be something you enjoy.

Yeah.

I mean, you have to look forward to going to that exercise, particularly. I like the gym. And, you know, we know. I always start off with cardio. Yeah. I usually go, you'd like 30, 35.

Minutes today, 40 minutes.

Yeah. I love the elliptical, and I like to get my heart rate about 140. I love Core. Right. After that, I do a core, and then I kind of move into whatever set muscle group we're working out that day. And.

Yeah.

You know, and then you. And I enjoy the, you know, the recovery part of it's just as important.

Yeah.

After you break down the tissue, you gotta recover.

Yeah. Amen. And it's just. It's just so nice to see somebody in the allopathic world, you know, with emergency experience and surgical experience that's actually really understands the benefit of maintaining themselves. It's okay to be selfish and put yourself first, or else you really can't help.

Can't help everyone.

You can't help everyone.

You're not sharp.

I want my physician, when he's doing surgery on me, I want that guy to be in the best shape of his life. I Hope he did 40 minutes on the elliptical like you took a fricking cold bath. And they clean that day. Right.

I think that's the perfect day. And then if you get to go home and watch a UFC fight or some other contact sport, perfect night, perfect evening.

You know, I think this has given people a lot of perspective. I'm really excited about our mutual, you know, ventures that we've got underway. Underway together.

As am I.

Tremendous, tremendous respect for you and what you've done and the impact you've had on the sport and just the fact that you've been involved for so many decades and. And watched it grow from such a sort of backyard brawl to the. One of the greatest sanctioned sports in the world. I always end these interviews the same way, these podcasts, the same way. And I say, what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? No right or wrong answer. But just what does it mean to be an ultimate human?

To me, it might come a little bit easier. To me, an ultimate human is every day you get up, you're excited for that day. You're going to do your best, you're gonna work your hardest, and you're gonna put out the best energy you can. And to me, if you accomplish that, you rest so peacefully that night. It's a wonderful day, and I think every day it needs to be that. You need to get up motivated and excited to do whatever you do. And I do. I get up every day.

Oh, you definitely do.

People say, how do you go back?

You're bouncing off the wall.

How do you go back into the er? How are you still practicing? I'm like, I love it. I mean, I get up, what am I gonna do today? I don't wanna sit at home. I wanna get up and do something. I wanna. I want to produce. I want to be out there. I want to be in the emergency department and do a shift and then come over here and work out and then go take care of the athletes and then, you know, come speak with you. I mean, that's. That's the ultimate human, to enjoy what you do every day and to feel productive every day. You get a great night's sleep that night.

That's awesome. Well, the ultimate human, Dr. Jeffrey Davidson. Thank you guys for tuning in. And as always, that's just science.