Driven To Compete For The Community

Growing up in Mt. Lebanon and starring in both football and lacrosse, James R. Mullen, MD, St. Clair Medical Group–Orthopedic Surgery, learned a thing or two about playing through pain.

“Two broken thumbs. I broke one collarbone and dislocated the other. A pair of torn hamstrings. Severe high ankle sprain. A shoulder dislocation requiring surgery. And I even broke my nose playing basketball recreationally,” he says. “But what I do isn’t just about sports—it’s for anyone who feels like whatever they’re battling through is something they just have to deal with,” he says.

The two-time high school All-America selection and member of the 2005 US Lacrosse Senior Showcase Championship team—as the only representative from Western Pennsylvania—played both sports at the Division I level, garnering multiple All-Conference awards as well as Team MVP while attending Dartmouth College before “going pro” in orthopedic surgery.

“The path I chose really chose me because musculoskeletal injuries are things that everyone can understand—you literally feel it in your bones. What’s always impacted me is how those injuries affect the rest of your life, because your spouse, your children, your coworkers, they’re just like your teammates and you don’t want to let them down,” he says. “My background as a Division I athlete helps me relate to whatever you’re going through, as I have experienced a lot of the same injuries and/ or simple wear-and-tear issues first hand. I then combine my personal and professional experience along with your specific goals, wants, and needs to formulate a customized gameplan to make your pain, stiffness, or immobility less of a burden for you and the people you love. Just like a teammate, they’re the ones who have to pick up the slack when you’re hurting, and I’ve been through that.”

Before joining St. Clair Health in 2022, Mullen worked with Dr. William C. Hagberg—who also specialized in treatment of shoulder, hand, and elbow—at a Wexfordbased orthopedic private practice.

“Early on it was easy to see that Jimmy was a very gifted surgeon. His talent with arthroscopic elbow and shoulder procedures—and also with joint replacement and arthroplasty—was quite evident. I had complete confidence referring my own patients to him,” Hagberg says.

In similar fashion to Mullen, who played through the myriad sports injuries listed above in pursuit of his Division I goal, Hagberg embraced the grind that is often all too easy to simply associate with everyday life.

“I had arthritis in my shoulder for…seven to ten years. It was bothersome, but it was something I could work through. Progressively it got worse, and I didn’t want to undergo a replacement procedure because I thought it would take me out of work for too long,” Hagberg says.

Thriving in private practice for more than 30 years while also teaching orthopedic fellows across the region, Hagberg built up an extensive network of surgical knowledge and trust throughout the city. Upon retirement last year, he started coming to terms with the quality of the rest of his life.

“I had a lot of things to do! My son was getting married. My daughter had just welcomed another baby into the fold. And a really good friend of ours was getting married in Australia. I still didn’t want to jump right into a major surgery…but it was getting harder and harder to not admit how much the stiffness and the pain was affecting pretty much everything,” he says.

For many, shoulder arthritis causes so much pain that they can’t sleep. For Hagberg, it wasn’t constant debilitating pain, but rather acute pain at the extremes of motion, where the end point of reaching for something crunched enough to bring the moment to a standstill.

“My wife deserves a ton of credit here. She’s a retired OB/GYN and she helped me see that I was forcing myself to live within limits that didn’t need to exist,” he says. “The pain wasn’t keeping me up at night, but there were many points throughout any given day where I was sort of bracing for impact.”

What Dr. Margie C. Hagberg saw was her husband struggling through and even actively avoiding the very things he had long looked forward to in retirement.

“Getting down on the ground to play blocks with the grandkids meant that I had to think about how I was going to push off to get up. And I had completely stopped playing golf—I wanted to take Margie to get lessons so we could play together and that just wasn’t possible,” he says.

The time had come to take action. And the choice of surgeon was clear.

“I knew Dr. Mullen’s talent from scrubbing in with him—I was very comfortable. Look, I’m a surgeon, so I knew the potential procedures, the literature associated with their outcomes, and the indications of my condition. The biggest thing in making the decision was being able to put my complete trust in another surgeon’s hands. I knew from the moment I made up my mind that Jimmy was that guy.”

Dr. Mullen’s plan called for a reverse shoulder replacement versus the standard anatomical option. With the latter, surgeons replace the shoulder ball and socket with a prosthetic ball and socket. The more advanced reverse shoulder replacement is exactly what it sounds like—the ball is placed on the socket side of the joint and the socket is then placed on the arm side, with a metal stem in the arm bone (humerus) supporting it. “It has become more prevalent in the last 15 years, and his experience with the procedure was even greater than mine. When Jimmy laid it out for me, I knew he was right,” Hagberg says.

“Going with a reverse shoulder replacement is better for a patient with the degree of Bill’s bone loss and deformity because the change in position of the joint removes the grinding and crunching and pain associated with arthritis,” Mullen says. “Especially if you have a large rotator cuff tear—this prosthesis is going to function extremely well for you over an extended period of time.”

With advanced imaging and 3D computer-navigated technology, St. Clair Health orthopedic surgeons are able to model a patient’s joint replacement procedure prior to actually performing it.

“Operating on another orthopedic surgeon is unique—and Bill obviously comes to the table with his extensive experience in the surgical theater, specializing in the exact same subspecialty within orthopedics as myself. One of the elements that’s really cool for any patient is being able to take this complicated operation and create 3D models of their anatomy, which allows for a customized surgical plan tailored to the shape and orientation of their bones,” Dr. Mullen says. “The 3D surgical modeling gives both myself and the patient precise visualization of exactly what we’re going to do prior to the surgery, with the ultimate goal of maximizing function and minimizing pain.”

Time and timing were of equal importance to Dr. Mullen.

“Bill is a very active guy—and as much as he wanted to get back out on the golf course, he has five grandkids under age five. Expert care from people who care means that at St. Clair Health, we build a specific and customized plan around the way you want to live your life,” he says.

Dunlap Family Outpatient Center was designed with exacting intent to make every step of a patient’s health care journey as seamless as possible.

“As impressed as I am with Jimmy, I’m just as impressed with St. Clair’s new facility. All my preoperative testing, bloodwork, EKG, and CT scan took place right there in the same building,” Hagberg says. “I was expecting everything to take at least a whole day—maybe even multiple days—but my appointment was at two o’clock in the afternoon and I was headed home by four, all set for my surgery.”

Another benefit of outpatient shoulder replacement surgery at St. Clair Health: Hagberg returned to the comfort of his own home the very same day his procedure took place.

“I had no pain at all—and I slept well the very first night,” he says. “As a surgeon, I helped many patients get back to where they wanted to be. But there was still some trepidation, because this time it was me having the surgery. I couldn’t be more amazed at how quick and pain-free the recovery process has been—I was out there chipping around the golf course after just 12 weeks and was able to raise my arm higher than it has gone in 10 years, at just 6 weeks from surgery.”

Dr. Mullen’s surgical expertise has extended to professional athletes—a rarified air in his specialty. A driving force of coming home was knowing that he’d be presented with opportunities to take care of people he’d known his whole life—even a former orthopedic partner.

“Functionally, we’re talking about taking a patient who couldn’t raise their arm above 50 degrees without excruciating pain before surgery and giving them full range of motion after surgery. Fundamentally, I’m not only taking care of the patient, but also their friends and family, as musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction affects everyone the patient regularly spends time with. There’s extra motivation built into these meaningful relationships with patients I know from previous life experiences. It’s something I feel every day at St. Clair,” he says.

Like getting the Dr. Hagbergs back to being Bill and Margie again.

“Retirement is everything I thought it could be. I think about it kind of like an athlete—and maybe that’s Jimmy rubbing off on me—I wanted to go out on top where I was still doing an excellent job for my patients,” Hagberg says. “Now, because of him, I get to ‘compete’ at my personal best for my family.”

James R. Mullen, MD
Dr. Mullen specializes in orthopaedic surgery of the shoulder, hand, and arm in both adults and children. He is boardcertified by the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery and the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery–Division of Hand and Arm Surgery. Dr. Mullen earned his medical degree at Temple University School of Medicine. He completed a residency in orthopaedic surgery at Hofstra University– Northwell Health System, where he served as Administrative Chief Resident, and a fellowship in hand, arm, shoulder, and microvascular surgery at New York University Medical Center. He practices with St. Clair Medical Group. To contact Dr. Mullen, please call 412.942.7262.