Hip arthroscopy: Helping student athletes get back in the game

For many young athletes, sports aren’t just a pastime — they’re a lifestyle. The hours of practice, the push to be stronger and faster, and the drive to compete at higher levels all come with rewards… but sometimes, they also come with a cost.

That’s where hip arthroscopy can make all the difference.

“Hip arthroscopy is minimally invasive surgery of the hip that is critical to treating non-arthritic hip pain,” explains Owusu-Akyaw Kwado, MD FAAOS, a leading surgeon performing the procedure at Parham Doctors’ Hospital in Richmond, Virginia. “The most common reasons are to treat hip labral tears — where the labrum acts as a suction seal that holds the hip stable — and to treat hip impingement, when the ball and socket of the hip don’t fit together congruently.”

While many people associate hip surgery with older adults, Dr. O says the typical hip arthroscopy patient is actually younger and athletic — a group that’s eager to maintain or return to a high level of performance.

For Mitchell Johnson, a 21-year-old college football player, hip pain first showed up in high school.

“I’d been competing in football, wrestling, and track while lifting heavy in the gym,” he says. “By the summer before college, I started feeling pain in my lower back and around my hip — what I now know was from a labral tear.”

Like many athletes, he thought it was just a strain he could push through. But after physical therapy didn’t resolve the problem, an MRI revealed a cam-type impingement along with the tear. Surgery was recommended immediately.

Dr. O repaired the labrum and shaved down the impingement. “He told me he made sure to close it up really tight, knowing I’d be going back into football, so the stability and strength would be there,” James recalls.

Hip arthroscopy is an innovative, minimally invasive approach and is already in play in Central Virginia — at Parham Doctors’ Hospital. In fact, in 2024, Dr. O was recognized in the top 1% nationally for hip patient outcomes.

“Minimally invasive surgery decreases recovery time and improves a patient’s ability to rehabilitate more effectively,” Dr. O says. “That’s the key to an optimal outcome.”

For Mitchell, recovery was intense but rewarding. “Dr. O gave me a game plan and told me that if I did my PT and followed through, we’d get me back to where I needed to be,” he says.

With the help of a dedicated physical therapy team, James progressed quickly — so quickly that he returned to football ahead of schedule. Two years later, his repaired hip feels “like my good hip now,” with no pain during training or games.

While hip surgery in young athletes used to be rare, Dr. O notes that more cases are appearing. Mitchell knows this first hand.

“With the way training has evolved, athletes are lifting heavier, running harder, and pushing their limits more than ever,” he says. “It makes sense that we’re seeing more hip injuries at younger ages.”

Dr. O adds that surgery isn’t the first option — conservative care like physical therapy comes first — but for those who need it, hip arthroscopy can mean the difference between sidelining their athletic dreams and staying in the game.

For Mitchell, the surgery didn’t just fix the pain — it taught him how to train smarter. “Now I know how to manage my other hip, which has a similar impingement,” he says. “It’s all about keeping myself healthy so I can keep playing.”

And for Dr. O, seeing athletes return to their sport is the most rewarding part of the job.

“I’ve seen collegiate athletes return to high-level competition and others who’ve committed themselves to lifelong hip health,” he says. “The goal is always the same: get them back to doing what they love — stronger than before.”