Medical director, Cartilage Restoration Center
Director, Cleveland Clinic Department of Orthopaedic Surgery
Subspecialties
Sports medicine and arthroscopic surgery
Education
Medical Doctor, 1989
University of Rochester
Master of Arts in Sports Management, 1983
University of Massachusetts
Bachelor of Arts, 1976
Middlebury College
Medical areas of interest
Articular cartilage transplantation and the arthroscopic use of lasers to treat musculoskeletal injuries
Sports involvement
Dr. Williams’s extensive personal experience with athletics and coaching makes him especially empathetic to injured athletes. As a teen, he competed in national whitewater canoeing championships. Later, he ran marathons and ultra marathons (30- to 50-mile races) and skied in the U.S. National Alpine Ski Championships.
His coaching experience includes coaching women’s alpine ski racing at Middlebury College, as well as the United States Olympic ski team. Over the years, he has also coached soccer, wrestling, tennis, track and field, football, lacrosse and squash. In addition, he has served as team physician for Euclid High School, Villa Angela-St. Joseph High School and John Carroll University.
Why he went into medicine
A fifth generation physician, Dr. Williams feels that he was meant to be a doctor. “I didn’t go to medical school until I’d already been out of college for 10 years,” he says. “But I’m now doing what I always wanted. Orthopaedics and sports are my life.
“You come into medicine so that you can take care of people the way you’d want to be cared for,” he adds. “I approach every case as if the patient were my own son, mother or other relative.”
Why he keeps in shape
“I try to practice what I preach,” he says. “If you have an overweight, out-of-shape doctor telling you to exercise and diet, it doesn’t ring true.”
What he finds most rewarding
“My favorite part of my job is the interaction with patients,” he says. “Since I feel that the whole psyche of an individual is important, I spend a lot of time with every patient. I work with wonderful peole both in my practice and at the hospital, which has a beautiful view of Lake Erie. It doesn’t get any better than this.”
How he describes his department
According to Dr. Williams, the Cleveland Clinic Department of Orthopaedics offers patients a wide variety of options that are among the most advanced in the nation. “Healing people and improving their lives is what we focus on, what we excel at and what we’re passionate about,” he says.