Comprehensive Care Clinic Doctor Brings Olympic Mindset to Arizona Patients
Dr. Shanyn Lancaster of the Midwestern University Comprehensive Care Clinic is a former top-tier collegiate athlete and current Medical Director of USA Gymnastics, and she wants to bring a winning mindset to her patients and residents.
Shanyn Lancaster, M.D., CAQSM, FAAFP, still remembers the moment she saw her near-perfect score appear the year her University of Minnesota Golden Gophers gymnastics team won the Big Ten Championship. Her score on the vault was unprecedented, deeply thrilling, and a satisfying payoff of the years of hard work, dedication, and goal-setting she had utilized to become an elite athlete.
Today, Dr. Lancaster is an academic physician and preceptor at Midwestern University's Comprehensive Care Clinic (CCC) in central Phoenix. She also serves as the medical director for Team USA's Gymnastics program, where she oversees the health of America's top-level Olympic gymnasts who are now in Paris, France for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. Dr. Lancaster is no stranger to Olympic competition, as she has also worked with Team USA Swimming since the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her work with Team USA comes after many years spent practicing sports medicine for athletes in the NCAA Final Four, Major League Baseball, and collegiate sports at Marquette and Arizona State University.
As the Olympics get underway, Dr. Lancaster is proud to fulfill her duties to the nation's athletes - as a former top-level scholarship athlete herself, she understands the special demands placed on athletes' bodies and minds from a first-hand perspective. But lately she finds an equal measure of fulfillment at the Comprehensive Care Clinic - helping prepare Family Medicine resident physicians to reach the top level of their respective fields, and helping patients achieve their best health outcomes with the same goal-oriented approach that made Dr. Lancaster a respected and accomplished athlete and healthcare professional in her own right.
"I truly feel like everyone's training for something," Dr. Lancaster says. "For someone, their greatest goal may be able to get up a flight of stairs so that they can be able to run around with their grandkids. Or maybe they have bad COPD and they simply want to walk a half a block. Everyone's got a goal, and it's really fun teaching the residents how to motivate people when they have someone who comes in and, for example, their diabetes is wildly uncontrolled. So we say, 'Okay, let's figure out what makes them tick. How do we get their motivation aligned with what our goals also are to help them lead healthier lives?'
"And once you find that, then the medicine part actually becomes really, really easy, because then all we have to do as physicians is sit on the sideline and be cheerleaders, because the patient discovers that they want to get there and achieve that goal. It's that same type of work, the same dedication and goal-setting, that drives athletes to achieve something like getting to the Olympics."
As Medical Director for USA Gymnastics, Dr. Lancaster helps oversee athlete health in six different disciplines of gymnastics: men's and women's artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, acrobatic gymnastics, trampoline and tumbling, and a fledgling program for parkour athletes. This year she is not traveling with the teams to the Paris Games, but is working remotely in concert with Team USA medical staff. And with a young child at home, this suits Dr. Lancaster well, because she can meaningfully contribute while still staying local and pursuing her newest passion - educating the healthcare team of tomorrow with Midwestern University and serving the Phoenix community at the Comprehensive Care Clinic.
"I've been at the CCC since March of last year, and this is just such a natural fit for me because I get to do so much resident teaching with both inpatient medicine and outpatient medicine at the clinic," says Dr. Lancaster. "One of my favorite things is seeing a resident go through that 'Aha!' moment where all of a sudden, something clicks, and they're like, 'I got it!' It's the greatest feeling in the world to be part of their journey."
One thing Dr. Lancaster wants the Valley community to know is that there is no such thing as special healthcare treatment for Olympians versus so-called "regular" patients. "I don't think you need to be Olympic caliber to have the same kind of care that an athlete would get," she says. "I truly believe that everyone deserves the personalized approach and care that athletes get, because, again, everyone's training for something. The question then becomes, 'What motivates you?' That personalized approach that works for athletes is just as effective for the general population. What are your goals? And what can I do to help you reach them? Let's work together so that we can provide you with the best version of your personal health."
The Midwestern University Comprehensive Care Clinic is located in central Phoenix and is a full-service family medicine resource for all ages, from newborn to senior care. Services include Family Medicine, Pediatric Care, Behavioral Health, Women's Health, and Medicare well visits. For more information, visit the Midwestern University Comprehensive Care Clinic website.
