Britt was a resident in La Crosse from 1994-1997. Britt stays in contact with one of his classmates, Dr. Tom Merkert who practices in Colorado. Tom, Britt, and Britt’s son have gone skiing in Colorado and stay in touch through their love of winter sports. Speaking of sports, Britt has the coolest job! When he and Kim first returned to the Iowa City area, he worked for the University of Iowa Family Medicine department, having a primary care focused practice. He gradually started doing more and more sports medicine and realized how much he loved it. He applied for and was accepted into the Sports Medicine fellowship at the University of Iowa and his career hasn’t been the same since.
Britt works very closely with the primary care sports medicine fellowship at the University of Iowa as the fellowship director and is also a core faculty in family medicine. One of our new faculty, Dr. Mark McElhaney trained under Britt’s supervision. Britt is a team physician for Iowa Hawkeye men’s basketball, men’s and women’s gymnastics, and men’s and women’s tennis. He is also the team doctor for UI and USA Ski and Snowboarding He has his own clinic, and like other academic doctors does research and teaches fellows, residents, and medical students. Special interests include exercise physiology and cardiac issues in athletes. He tells me a current area of research focus is gender in sports especially related to transgender issues, care, and competition.
We actually ran into Britt and his friend, Tonya, walking out of Hancher Auditorium on the University of Iowa Campus where we were watching The Color Purple. Britt had to assist a man next to him who had some kind of syncope during the show, so they didn’t get to see the whole thing. They also had just dealt with a 24-year old student’s cardiac arrest on the basketball floor during practice, so we shared some stories of AED’s and cardiac arrest over our drinks. We watched the Iowa Hawkeye’s beat the Wisconsin Badgers and got to watch Britt and his fellows be present to “do their thing” which fortunately wasn’t much. He gave us a tour of the facilities and training rooms and then we shared a beverage and got caught up. Speaking of Tonya, she is working in the ophthalmology department with a professor who has developed the first artificial intelligence eye exam tool that is meant to screen diabetics for early changes of diabetic eye disease. Pretty cool stuff!!
Britt remembers residency fondly and we caught up on some of the people he remembers and keeps in touch with. His primary care knowledge gets put in to use daily in his role as sports med doctor: the night we were there he had a “consult” from one of his BB players and it was eczema!!
Britt’s contact information is britt-marcussen@uiowa.edu.