For over three decades, St. Catherine Hospital - Garden City Sports Medicine Supervisor Steve Barrett has been an integral part of Garden City sports. As a Kansas native and big Kansas State University fan, Steve has always had an interest in sports and saw a desperate need for athletic trainers in Southwest Kansas, especially in rural areas.
Steve completed his Bachelor of Arts degree from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, before going on to earn his Master's at Indiana State University. During his time in graduate school, he served as the athletic trainer for West Vigo High School in Terre Haute, Indiana. After completing his training and gaining experience working as the head athletic trainer and associate professor at St. Joseph College in Rensselaer, Indiana, Steve returned home to Kansas to start the Athletic Training Program at Garden City Community College.
“I was at GCCC for six years before joining Dr. Michael Baughman in starting Sandhill Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Clinic," Steve said. "It was there where we started the Southwest Kansas High School Sports Medicine Program because of the need and lack of athletic trainers in Southwest Kansas. This program started in 1993 and still serves the athletes of 20 Southwest Kansas high schools and two community colleges today.”
Steve currently serves as the Sports Medicine Supervisor at St. Catherine Hospital in Garden City, where he and a team of orthopedic surgeons, athletic trainers, physical therapists, advanced practice providers, imaging specialists, and nurses all work together to care for injured athletes. When he’s not seeing patients at the Siena Medical Clinic, you can find him on the sidelines of local sporting events at Hugoton High School and Garden City Community College, caring for the student-athletes and ensuring they are playing in a fun yet safe way.
“Preventing injuries is a large part of our job," he said. "We not only fit protective equipment but assist coaches with strength-and-conditioning exercises that help prevent overuse injuries.”
His staff also holds many coach and EMS training sessions each year on a variety of sports medicine topics and hosts a Southwest Kansas Student Athletic Training Camp that has been held each summer since 1987 for students interested in a medical field.
One of the tests his team routinely performs for student-athletes in the area is a baseline concussion test.
“We do approximately 5,000 concussion baselines each year to establish individual baselines for each athlete for balance, reaction time, impulse control, inspection time, and memory," Steve said. "This is important as it lets medical providers know when a young athlete's brain has recovered from their concussion and they can safely play again."
Steve says that since the NFL lawsuit and the movie “Concussion” starring Will Smith came out, more research has been done on concussions than all other sports medicine topics combined.
“In the last 20 years, concussion treatment and diagnosis has changed dramatically. We use a state-of-the-art software called SWAY Medical to give us objective measurements to help us diagnose concussions.”
“We cover a wide rural area of Kansas providing athletes access to the best athletic trainers in the state. I wish each of these schools had a full-time athletic trainer and I hope to live long enough to see an athletic trainer at each high school.”
