With heart and soul for handball and medicine

Dr. Leyh, you have been the SGSH Dragons' team doctor since 2023. What appeals to you most about this role?
Dr. Markus Leyh: The SGSH Dragons play top-class handball in the 3rd Bundesliga. The level of performance in this league is impressive. As a young Lüdenscheid Red & White player, I often played against the Schalksmühler handball team. Even 40 years ago, the club had excellent players, coaches, support staff and good management Regular testing is extremely important for competitive athletes – and this insight also applies to popular sports. Just like today. Everyone is more attracted to certain sports. For me, it's handball. You often find a high degree of fairness and playful toughness in handball. Handball is also athletic and at the same time a team sport. Team sports shape your personality. You fight, win and lose together and learn to find your role in a group, to resolve conflicts but also to give in.
As a doctor in a sports clinic, it is almost obligatory to look after athletes, as we are responsible for the initial care, diagnosis and treatment of their injuries. And: voluntary work – and that's what it is for me – is becoming increasingly less important in our society. I think this development is fatal.

Handball is considered a particularly injury-intensive sport. What typical injuries do you encounter and how do you deal with them?
Dr. Markus Leyh: The spectrum of injuries to handball players is diverse. Basically, we see every type of sports injury. However, the main focus is on injuries to the fingers, knee joints, elbow joints and shoulders. These also include strains, contusions, torn tendons and ligaments, fractures and cartilage injuries. Later, it is wear and tear and overuse injuries that we treat.
In the case of an acute injury, the examination and diagnosis are carried out quickly with precise imaging, such as MRI/CT/sonography or X-rays. We look after the athletes until their return to competition.

What makes the proximity to the Sportklinik Hellersen so valuable for your players?
Dr. Markus Leyh: The players benefit from the special expertise and proximity to a very large sports and joint clinic that brings together specialists for all movement systems under one roof. There is an interdisciplinary exchange between the departments, including with Dr. Ulrich Schneider, Chief of Sportmedizin Hellersen and internist, and Dr. Stefan Nolte, Chief of Conservative Orthopaedics. The paths both within the clinic and to colleagues in private practice are short and enable an exceptionally fast response that would not be possible elsewhere. We work pragmatically and are always results-oriented.
I myself am a specialist trauma surgeon, orthopaedic and trauma surgeon, general surgeon and licensed D-doctor. Being licensed by the employers' liability insurance associations is a “must-have” in the treatment of injured professional athletes.

You used to play handball yourself. Does this experience help you when treating athletes?
Dr. Markus Leyh: Definitely! An accident victim always asks about the mechanism of the accident when taking the medical history. They want to know what force acted on the body and how. Then he can often determine which structures are injured without imaging. If you have been practising sport for a long time, you really know what forces are at work. That helps me a lot. And how to heal more quickly, how long it takes and what hurts and how – especially if you've been injured often enough yourself.

What role does prevention play in your sports medicine care?
Dr. Markus Leyh: Preventive work in my job is often tertiary prevention – in other words, advice after an injury to prevent re-injury. Even if not enough attention has been paid to advice in primary prevention up to now, it is becoming increasingly important. And I am certain that this primary prevention, i.e. protection before the first event in medicine and sport, will and must become increasingly important – also thanks to the possibilities of data analysis and artificial intelligence.

What does it mean to you personally to be the team doctor for the Dragons?
Dr. Markus Leyh: Fun, joy, meaning, an interest in the injured and a sentimental memory of my youth. They're just nice, somewhat wild guys.