Sports medicine specialist to address young athletes in Norton

Joseph Congeni, MD, director of Sports Medicine at Akron Children’s Hospital, will give a talk from 7 to 9 p.m. on Aug. 5 at the Norton Community Center on weight training for middle and high school athletes and the use of steroids and supplements in youth athletics.

Dr. Congeni’s talk, sponsored by the Player’s Choice Athletics, is targeted to youth sports teams and all young athletes are invited to attend. Dr. Congeni will also take questions from the audience.

Students are free and adults are $5.

Dr. Congeni is board certified in pediatrics with an added qualification in sports medicine. He has served on the executive committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness, and developed the primary care pediatrics sports medicine fellowship at Akron Children’s, the first of its kind at a pediatric hospital in the United States.

He is a professor of pediatrics at the Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine and in 2008 was named the Ohio Outstanding Team Physician by the Ohio State Medical Association and the Team Physician of the Year by the Ohio Athletic Trainers’ Association. He is a team physician for the University of Akron and Archbishop Hoban High School and discusses current issues in sports medicine in a weekly radio segment on WAKR AM.

Dr. Congeni has published many papers with special interest in lumbar spondylolysis, youth baseball injuries and brain injuries in young athletes.