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the Bayern doctor

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"He never does publish something about this," says Dr. Ulrike Muschaweck, a Munich surgeon who is an international leader in treating sports hernias. "It is kind of a secret. He has a big group of doctors sending patients to him and believing in this success, so it must work. But I don't know how it works. So then I must know. You couldn't ask him. I have never seen a report of this. Never have I seen an article or anything. Never. And he never would give a presentation. I never have seen the results of this work."

Muschaweck is in her fourth-floor office in a Munich medical building, a 20-minute cab ride from Muller-Wohlfahrt's clinic, but their approach to medicine seems worlds apart, even though both attract international sports patients. Muschaweck reveals that they had a working relationship until about 10 years ago; she then ends the discussion with only, "but we are not a good team together."

One apparent issue was Muller-Wohlfahrt's increasing reliance on injections. In simple terms, he believes in avoiding surgery, whereas Muschaweck is of the mind that injections serve as a mere stopgap in putting off the inevitable need for surgery. "I am not a fan of injections all over and not facing the real problem, do you know what I mean?" she says. "If you have an injury of a joint or of a ligament, then you could inject whatever you would like. It wouldn't help. So there is no [complete] healing. Only for some time, but not [long-term] healing only if you do the injections."

The use of injections, however, is an accepted German medical practice. And while Muller-Wohlfahrt understands why skeptics question his failure to document his work more thoroughly, he promises that is changing. In recent years, he's added two young doctors to his staff and hopes his son, 30-year-old Kilian, will join the practice soon, thus freeing him to champion his work in journals and on the lecture circuit and to train other doctors. "My problem is I work really hard and all day long, from early morning to night," he says. "So the people miss scientific work. Today you have to do scientific work to provide this proof. I can't do. It is my experience and I talk about empirical medicine. And when you do so many cases, then it is a sort of science. You can't say it is nonsense, not after so many years of successful work.
"For me, I am here to help patients and not to do science. That is not my destination. I feel that the people need me. And you see how many want to come. And I have to work to do as many as I can.

"Because I work so hard, I have no time for educating others. Now I started and that is my destiny, to give my knowledge away. It is in my head. Before I stop one day, I have to have [train] enough young people who do the same like me now." But even friends of Muller-Wohlfahrt in the medical community say he has been too tardy embracing evidence-based medicine. They vouch for his clinical judgment, yet they're concerned that he doesn't publish supportive data. To them, if doctors are going to operate outside the mainstream, they have an even greater obligation to prove that their medical treatments work.

At this late juncture in his career, Muller-Wohlfahrt can't be bothered by the white noise. What matters to him is that his patients believe in him and his waiting room is full. Equally important, he says, is having stood the test of time in the sports world.

The role of tending to Bayern Munich is hugely prominent and important. The squad is composed of pricey, high-end talent. The average player salary approaches $6 million -- ranking ahead of the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks, World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals and a host of big-money franchises like the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia Phillies. You don't keep this kind of gig for nearly 40 years if you're a quack. There were also doubters in the 1970s, when the up-and-coming Muller-Wohlfahrt was brought in from Berlin.

"I was very young, and they expected big success," he recalls. "This was a world of superstars. [Bayern Munich] was the European champion three times in a row. It was [Franz] Beckenbauer, [Gerd] Muller, [Sepp] Maier, [Hans-Georg] Schwarzenbeck. They were my patients. I was very young. I had to be successful.

"By this, I invented or tried therapies which didn't exist until then. It was one needle [of homeopathic medicines], it was two, three, four. The thinking behind it was to look for the function and to listen to the patient. What does he say? Did it hurt? No effect? He says, 'What you did last time that was very good.' So we write down every time what we do, so I repeat it and then maybe even a little more. So by this I develop a treatment as you saw it now. This is standard. And this works."

With his clinic rounds in the rearview mirror, Muller-Wohlfahrt heads to the outskirts of Munich on a sunny late Saturday morning. His destination is Allianz Arena. The stadium, which seats nearly 70,000, is the most impressive of the facilities built or renovated for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. It now serves as home to Bayern Munich. The team doctor pulls his luxury SUV into a reserved spot 30 yards from the players' entrance. He carries a black duffel bag that contains his needles, Actovegin and other medical supplies.

Two hours before the game, he and a reporter are standing smack dab in the center of the field surveying the scene as the hometown Bayern fans slowly filter in. The place will soon be packed. "The feeling when you come out is incredible," he says, speaking of the emotional pregame entry alongside the players. The doctor later laments the club's uninspiring 1-0 win against an overmatched Borussia Monchengladbach. But the star of the game is midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, who was treated with injections two days earlier in Muller-Wohlfahrt's downtown clinic. Another prominent player who also stopped by that same day, Turkish-born Hamit Altintop, remains unable to play after receiving six injections to quiet a calf injury.

After the game, Muller-Wohlfahrt reports that a handful of Bayern players required injections in the locker room, including shots of the straw-colored-liquid Actovegin.
That the doctor has a reputation to protect is easy to tell in the short walk back to his SUV. The guy is famous. Fans rush forward for his autograph. He poses for snapshots with others. To the old-timers, he is Dr. Bayern.

The scene is repeated later, to a lesser degree, when he stops to proudly show a reporter Englischer Garten, Munich's lush equal of Central Park in New York or Hyde Park in London. Muller-Wohlfahrt suggests a trek deep into the park to a popular beer garden. Less than 10 minutes in, the doctor's knee gives out.
He's limping badly. He's supporting himself with his right hand on the reporter's shoulder. He's shaking his knee, wildly kicking it out to the side. He manages to "get it back in place" and resists the suggestion to call it a day. He soldiers on to the beer garden. Along the way, he reveals having had surgery on his other knee last year.
So finally, it turns out the well-preserved doctor with the normally peppy gait is human. He too copes with aches and pains. And, while still swearing by the odds, his trained hands and injected medicines can't cure all. He acknowledges surgery can't always be avoided.

"People say 'miracle' -- I don't like this," he says of the reaction from some patients. "But they think, 'If we get a day in his office, then we get healthy.' They come and say, 'Now you are my last hope.' I don't like this miracle image. I don't know the right word. It is not a miracle, but they look upon me as somebody who is a healer or whatever. "They come all the way because they believe in me. And it is a high responsibility. This is because the name is growing, expanding."

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_...fahrta-great-healer-quack-hyperactive-syringe
 
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Until they burn or their branches/leaves fall off and decompose. Then they take all that oxygen back with interest.

The trees don't actively burn or decompose though, you can't blame them for that.
 
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This doctor... I hear they were 'Bayern' for his blood! Ha ha! I don't bother about pronunciation. She's me favourite nun. Anyway. Ajax. It's great cleaning our kitchen...[continues on Wheeltappers and Shunters Club DVD, vol.9]
 
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This doctor... I hear they were 'Bayern' for his blood! Ha ha! I don't bother about pronunciation. She's me favourite nun. Anyway. Ajax. It's great cleaning our kitchen...[continues on Wheeltappers and Shunters Club DVD, vol.9]

Did you see the episode when he made his entry carrying a newspaper, turned to the back page and read out: "Liverpool 0, Everton 6"? After waiting for the boos to die down, he blew hard on the paper and a huge cloud of dust flew up. :cool:
 
The brother of a old work colleague of mine works and lives in Munich. This Bayern Dr is his GP, always said he's a little weird, but never had any issues with him. The clinic he works in is like a shrine to Bayern Munchen, with the walls covered in memorabilia.
 
We need a doctor to shed some light on this. Doctormac ?

And since when was A-Rod a drug cheat ?!

I'm on the case. I'm currently comparing his methods with Chaucer's 'Doctour of physik' in The Canterbury Tales:

With us ther was a DOCTOUR OF PHISIK;
In al this world ne was ther noon hym lik,
To speke of phisik and of surgerye,
For he was grounded in astronomye.
He kepte his pacient a ful greet deel
In houres, by his magyk natureel.
Wel koude he fortunen the ascendent
Of his ymages for his pacient.
He knew the cause of everich maladye,
Were it of hoot, or coold, or moyste, or drye,
And where they engendred, and of what humour.
He was a verray parfit praktisour:
The cause yknowe, and of his harm the roote,
Anon he yaf the sike man his boote.
Ful redy hadde he hise apothecaries
To sende him drogges and his letuaries,
For ech of hem made oother for to wynne-
Hir frendshipe nas nat newe to bigynne.
Wel knew he the olde Esculapius,
And Deyscorides and eek Rufus,
Olde Ypocras,Haly, and Galyen,
Serapioun, Razis, and Avycen,
Averrois, Damascien, and Constantyn,
Bernard, and Gatesden, and Gilbertyn.
Of his diete mesurable was he,
For it was of no superfluitee,
But of greet norissyng, and digestible.
His studie was but litel on the Bible.
In sangwyn and in pers he clad was al,
Lyned with taffata and with sendal;
And yet he was but esy of dispence;
He kepte that he wan in pestilence.
For gold in phisik is a cordial,
Therfore he lovede gold in special.
 
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