get to know: Lora Scott, MD, program director, sports medicine

The center for the female athlete at Dayton Children's is led by a group of physicians, specialists, dietitians, and athletic trainers dedicated to the current and future health and wellness of the female athlete. Each caregiver plays an important role on the team, providing total wellness of the young female athlete and the unique situations that affect them.

Name: Lora Scott, MD

Role on the center for the female athlete team: I am trained in General Pediatrics and Sports Medicine. My role is to manage medical conditions and minor injuries in young athletes. In the center for the female athlete, I usually treat medical problems and injuries which occur when female athletes have a mismatch between how they are eating and how they are exercising. This often impacts their menstrual health and bone health, as well as exercise tolerance and energy levels.

Why is it important to have your specialty as part of the center for the female athlete team?

I help connect the dots between all the other individuals involved with the team. For example, we may see an athlete who is currently out for injury. Our team looks at how her nutritional support, exercise habits, and coping skills are helping or hurting her recovery, plus how they could have contributed to the original injury. My role is to look at how all of these fit together and whether or not her body is fully supporting her athletic demands. I look into things such as vitamin D levels, iron, hormone levels, and bone density. After chronic mismatches in training demands and nutrition, these are often abnormal. We treat these abnormalities and help the girls correct what caused them. Our goal is that the girls learn how to equip their bodies and minds for their sports demands before they leave the program.



What are your goals for the program?

For each individual, we want to empower these young athletes to address and treat medical and psychological issues which may otherwise prevent her from meeting her goals. We want her to realize that her needs and her teammates needs may not be the same, and that's ok! For the community, we want to build awareness of conditions which uniquely affect female athletes.



What do you want female athletes to know about the program?

We understand that injuries are just the tip of the iceberg, and that everything under the surface needs to be addressed in order to prevent future injuries. We are here for everything under the surface as well. Training habits, coping skills, nutritional challenges, menstrual health, and bone health all contribute to injuries, whether they already happened or could happen in the future. We address all of these.