A Doctor in Demand : Mel Hayashi Has His Pick of Jobs, but He Will Take the Preps Over the Pros

Some aspects of Dr. Mel Hayashi’s practice have a touch of the exotic--the Olympic Games, the Mayo Clinic, the Dallas Cowboys, the United States Olympic Training Center, the National Sports Festival.

Yet, Hayashi, a prominent orthopedic surgeon in Thousand Oaks, gets his greatest satisfaction from his work as the team physician for high school football programs--including those at Newbury Park, Westlake and Agoura.

“First off, of all the sports I’m involved with, football is still the most exciting,” Hayashi said. “To me, it’s the American sport.

“The pros are good for your ego and prestige, but their philosophy is a little different than mine. With the Olympic team, you work with elite athletes, and I like that, but I really enjoy helping these young athletes who are just starting out.”

Hayashi and his partner, Dr. Dennis Sakai, also tend to the athletic programs at Channel Islands and Santa Clara high schools, in addition to consulting on injuries for Camarillo, Simi Valley, Crespi and Hart. He also works for Moorpark and Oxnard colleges, and the Pepperdine University baseball program.

But Hayashi has gained some national notice for his work with the Orthopedic Practice Society (comprised exclusively of orthopedics from the Mayo Clinic, where he was head resident in 1971), the Bigger Stronger Faster fitness program, the U.S. Olympic team and consultations at the Cowboys’ training camp at Cal Lutheran College.

“He’s tops in his field,” said Dr. Frank Sim, head of orthopedics at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “He’s really made an impact with his practice in the Thousand Oaks and Los Angeles area.

“He has great interest and knowledge in the areas of instruction for coaches and in the rehabilitation of injured athletes. He’s an excellent surgeon, but it goes far beyond that. He’s devoted an awful lot of time to community activities and care of youth teams.”

Hayashi won’t talk about it, but others say he has received job offers from around the country that would make him rich and famous.

He’s turned them all down.

“He’s committed not only to athletics, but to the Conejo Valley,” Newbury Park football Coach Ken Cook said. “I know he’s had job offers from all over the place and opportunities to do things that would take him away from here.

“But that’s not what he’s interested in. Fame and money are second place with him. He’s happy working with kids right here. He’s been team doctor at Newbury Park for over 10 years and we haven’t received a bill from him yet.”

Hayashi joined the Newbury Park staff in 1974 almost by accident when a player went to see him on his own and the boy’s parents were so pleased with the doctor’s work that they passed the word on to the coaches.

The relationship between Hayashi and the Panther staff went beyond friendship. Hart Coach Rick Scott, a former Newbury Park assistant, says at one time there were seven coaches on the staff who were operated on by Hayashi.

“He’s done me twice,” Scott said. “I was in an auto accident and came into the hospital with my ear almost severed and my hip dislocated.

“It was during the doctor’s strike, and Mel was one of the leaders, but he used up one of his favors to get a specialist to come in and sew my ear back on. Mel took care of the rest. I remember him standing on the operating table in his cowboy boots trying to get my hip back into place. I feel I owe him my life.”

Hayashi didn’t ride in on his horse, he always does surgery in his cowboy boots.

In fact, he takes a lot of ribbing from his friends about his wardrobe. It can best be described as casual, in or out of the office. Designer jeans and western shirts present a real contrast to Sakai, who favors three-piece suits.

“Mel has one tie,” Scott says, “and it’s his Mayo Clinic tie.”

Added Cook: “If you saw him on the streets, you’d never think of him as a doctor. Maybe a cowboy, or a truck driver. He’s just one of the guys, and that’s all he wants to be.”

Hayashi also has a special relationship with the players he treats. He bought special “big game” jerseys for Newbury Park a few years ago and also instituted a scholarship program at the school. When he missed a victory by the Panthers in the playoffs because he was at a medical clinic in Hawaii, he brought back 20 cases of pineapples and threw a party for the team.

Hayashi was so sure Agoura would win the Southern Section’s Desert-Mountain Conference championship game that he had T-shirts made up so he could hand them out to the players immediately after the game.

However, he played a much bigger role in the Chargers’ drive to the title.

“I don’t know how much of it was him and how much of it was luck, but we didn’t have a single player miss a single game because of an injury,” Agoura Coach Frank Greminger said. “We had people injured, but he and his staff always had them ready to play.”

When Agoura’s All-Southern Section linebacker Curtis Schmidtberger suffered a shoulder separation in the semifinal game, Hayashi devised a pad so the Chargers’ inspirational leader could play in the championship game.

Earlier in the season, Jeff Federman dislocated a finger and was lost to the Agoura offense because he couldn’t catch the ball, but Hayashi wrapped the finger so Federman could play on defense.

“It’s not like he just stuck a bandage on them and sent them out to play,” Greminger said. “He won’t let a kid play if there’s a chance he can reinjure himself. But if there’s a way he can safely play with an injury he will find it.

“We actually see Tammy Ollner (a trainer on Hayashi’s staff) as much as we see him because he’s so busy. But he’s always available if you need him, early in the morning or late at night.

“We were lucky to get him. Another doctor didn’t show up once, so we called Dr. Hayashi. It’s the best thing that ever happened to us.”

A quick look around Hayashi’s waiting room on any given day presents a stark contrast. You might see a 19-year-old volleyball player from Pepperdine wearing a knee brace and a 70-year-old man who gets around only with the help of a walker.

When his general orthopedic practice became too much to handle in 1978-79, Hayashi turned primarily to sports medicine. The only other work he handles is joint replacements--knees, elbows, ankles and hips.

That keeps him in touch with the older generation.

“I knew it was too much when I was treating 40 patients a day,” Hayashi said. “I worry about quality care.”

Hayashi and Sakai employ three physical therapists, an athletic trainer, two student physical therapists and 16 student trainers. They plan to add another doctor soon.

Patients come to see Hayashi from as far away as New York and his native Hawaii. For daily appointments, people come from Anaheim and Paso Robles.

Much of Hayashi’s reputation stems from his work at the U.S. Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, Colo. Last August, the West German Olympic team sent a field hockey player to Thousand Oaks so Hayashi could perform surgery on him for a shoulder injury suffered during the Olympics.

“He’s one of 12 physicians we have on our staff from across the country,” said athletic trainer Bob Beeton, director of the medical center at the Olympic training center. “They go through a weeding-out process. He’s good, or he wouldn’t be there.

“In addition to his abilities, Mel has exceptional rapport with the athletes. He’s not a publicity-seeker, and that’s unusual, especially for California.”

Hayashi spent every day except one working at the Olympics in Los Angeles last summer, but none of his friends saw him on television and he didn’t give a single press interview.

He wasn’t in the limelight.

“Everyone has the illusion that it’s glamorous,” Hayashi said. “They think I’m down on the field with the best seats in the house watching all these things happen.

“Actually, I was in the Pauley Clinic at UCLA, working from 3 to 11 p.m. I saw none of it, zero, in person. It’s not glamorous, but it’s fun.”

Hayashi is no miracle worker, he just knows his stuff.

When Cal Poly Pomona volleyball player Jill Smith went to Hayashi a few years ago with a knee injury that threatened to cut short her career, he designed a knee brace especially for her. She played her final two years and made all-conference. She’s 25 now, still active, and has never had surgery on the knee.

Scott sent wide receiver Jim Shrout to Hayashi this summer with a knee injury that another doctor said needed surgery. Hayashi put Shrout on medication and a rehabilitation program, and he played for the Indians in their summer passing league.

“Athletes come to him and he’ll design something especially for that player and his injury,” Scott said. “He doesn’t just make these things up. There’s at least a little bit of science behind it.

“Unlike a lot of doctors, he understands athletic injuries himself.”

Hayashi, 45, stays active by playing softball, tennis and racquetball. He runs 2 1/2 miles to work two or three times a week and is an avid skier.

“I used to play handball, but I’d bang my hands up and it was too difficult to operate the next day,” he said. “I’ve always been involved in sports.”

Another of his interests is the Bigger Stronger Faster program, which holds fitness seminars throughout the country and publishes a magazine that features nationally known athletes displaying body-building techniques.

Hayashi sponsors one of those clinics and a weight-lifting competition for high school athletes in Thousand Oaks.

“He’s the first orthopedic surgeon I’ve seen who has gotten down to the grass-roots level to prevent injuries, even though if he does too good a job, it could put him out of business,” said Dr. Greg Shepard, president of Bigger Faster Stronger and strength consultant for the Utah Jazz.

“He’s just so well informed. He goes to sources other orthopedic surgeons wouldn’t even think of. He’s probably No. 1 in the nation in our field for knowing what’s going on.”

Hayashi has had some exposure with Hollywood, mostly with stunt men.

He also became acquainted with actor James Brolin, and when Brolin broke his leg while filming in New York, he wanted Hayashi to fly back and set the break. Hayashi convinced Brolin that there were doctors in New York qualified to set the leg.

“I didn’t tell my wife about that and she was upset when she found out,” Hayashi said, laughing. “She couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t treat James Brolin. But I wouldn’t go back there just for that.”

Besides, he’s just not the kind of guy to be doctor to the stars.