HealthStar Physicians hosts free physicals for Lake Hamilton athletes

With a long history of Lake Hamilton’s athletic program partnering with HealthStar Physicans of Hot Springs for free physical examinations for the school’s athletes, the school hosted the clinic Tuesday with approximately 400 students getting their physicals.

Lake Hamilton will be hosting a second event next Tuesday from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. “for any Lake Hamilton athlete” where the clinic again will be conducting the examinations.

Lake Hamilton athletic trainer Heidi Balliette handled and put together the main details of the operation, and she is proud of the overall cooperation from everyone involved.

“Lake Hamilton has partnered with HealthStar Physicians for 10 years now to provide physicals for our students here,” she explained. “We had a total of four physicians and four nurses come out along with some office personnel, and we were able to service upwards of I think somewhere around 400 students today at last count.

“Every person that came on campus, provider-wise or coach-wise, was required to have a mask, obviously a temperature check, and (answer) COVID-19 screening questions, and we keep a log of that. We had our coaches man the parking lot. Every student that came today or athlete that came today, we lined them up to split up in the parking lot, and we just went after it. One person per tent with a physician at a time, so all of those guidelines were safely followed at all times. I’m proud to say with huge commendment to our kids and our coaches for stepping up and following those today.”

Athletic director Rick Waters explained how helpful the clinic has been to provide these physicals free of charge for the student-athletes over the last decade.

“HealthStar Physicians have done our physicals for us for the last several years — Dr. (Kevin) Hale, his office and his people, Dr. (John) Erwin and Dr. (Michael) Mullins — those folks have really helped out,” he said. “They bring in several other physicians. … It worked out great. Those people that were helping did an awesome job.”

Due to COVID-19 concerns, the organizers were required to think creatively and in correspondance with the guidelines that have been put into place for the safety of all athletes, physicians, coaches and personnel that were present.

“Usually they do it in their clinics over there on Airport Road,” Waters explained. “Because of COVID-19, he can only do 10 kids at their clinic at a time and with the transportation issues from COVID, we couldn’t put but like 12-13 kids on a bus to get them back to clinic so Heidi made a few phone calls to Dr. Mullins, Dr. Hale and those guys up there at that office. We kind of pitched the idea of doing it (at the school), and they all agreed. … When we first scheduled it, we kinda thought about just doing it in the arena and using all the dressing rooms, and then we realized we couldn’t do all that because we couldn’t have that many people at that time inside the facility when we were scheduling it. It’s changed a little now, (but) we just decided to set up some little tents where you could be good and private.”

Balliette noted her gratefulness to HealthStar Physicians for their continued support and sacrifice in providing this much-needed service to the student-athletes at Lake Hamilton.

“This year with COVID we had to move it out to the school, and we did physicals, and we are just very appreciative of HealthStar for lending us their physicians and nurses for the day to come out and do this works,” she said. “Our coaches always step up and do their part, and always a huge thanks to definitely our parents and our kids for getting there to support them

and doing the free cause.”

The Wolves’ athletic staff recognizes the need for their students to have access to this particular service — a factor that initially inspired this cause.

“This is a service we’ve offered this community because we know not all of our children have access to those needs, so this is something that we’ve offered for a while just to reach out and tell the community that we as their health care providers are there,” added Balliette.

“I, as their sports medicine provider at the campus, and our team doctors really work well together.”