Family Physician Heads Women's Olympic Hockey Medical Team

Family Physician Heads Women's Olympic Hockey Medical Team

Family and sports medicine physician Allyson (Ally) Howe, MD, is living out a personal dream this week as head physician for the 2018 US Olympic Women’s Ice Hockey team in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Dr Howe, 45, is employed with InterMed, in Portland, Maine. She told the Portland Press Herald , “I wanted to be a hockey player when I was 10. I tried to get my dad to let me, but it didn’t fit in our family plan.”

Dr Ally Howe (Courtesy of Maine Medical Center )

The US women’s hockey team competes February 11 to 22, starting with a match Sunday against Finland. The Press Herald reported that this will be the second Olympics for Dr Howe, who went to the 2014 Sochi, Russia, games as a general physician for US Olympic Committee staff, donors, family members, and former Olympians.

She told the Press Herald, “Every time I wore USA, I couldn’t wait to do it again. When I got back from (Sochi), that started the dream for me. My ultimate goal was to go with a team.”

Commitment to serving others is a lifelong pursuit. Dr Howe wrote in her InterMed biography that her mother was a nurse and her father was a leader in the Rotary Club when she was growing up in western New York.

“They showed me firsthand how caring for people in your community could make a difference,” she writes.

Two Decades of Military Service

Last year, Dr Howe, married with three children, retired from the Air National Guard after 20 years of military service.

She finished medical school at the State University of New York at Buffalo and then entered active duty with the Air Force, with her residency in Family Medicine at Travis Air Force Base in California. She was chosen for a sports medicine fellowship through the Uniformed Services University.

She moved to Maine and joined the faculty of Maine Medical Center for 7 years before joining InterMed in 2015.

According to USA Hockey, she has been an assistant professor at Tufts University, University of Vermont, and the University of New England and has been a team physician for American University, the US Naval Academy, the University of Southern Maine, St. Joseph’s College of Maine, and the Portland Pirates (American Hockey League).

Dawn Strout, head strength and conditioning coach at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, told Medscape Medical News she worked with Dr Howe at Maine Medical nearly 10 years ago.

When Strout became aware USA Hockey was looking for physicians, she immediately thought of Ally Howe. She said Dr Howe was immediately excited about the idea.

Her colleague always talked about her love of hockey, Strout said. “She has enthusiasm and empathy — she’s someone who wants to listen and help whoever it may be,” she said.

“It just made sense,” she said. “She’s invested. She’s dialed in. I think that’s what makes her really special.”

Dr Howe was a 1994 graduate of William Smith College in Geneva, New York, where, according to a press release, she earned All-America honors as a midfielder on the soccer team and a small forward on the basketball team.

In 2016, she was inducted into William Smith’s Heron Hall of Honor.

Watching on TV

Strout said she’s a huge Olympics fan and will be watching on TV this year with even more interest.

She said she worked with some of the current Olympic team members in previous years as a strength and conditioning coach when they were on the road competing at the Under-18 level.

She’s also proud of her colleague and friend.

“She deserves it,” she said.

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