Photo: Supplied/Dr Rowan Schouten
Season-ending and sometimes career-threatening, a serious stress fracture can lead athletes from around the world to call on a Christchurch-based surgeon to get them back playing.
Referrals from some of cricket's biggest names and a successful track record has made orthopaedic spine surgeon Dr Rowan Schouten a trusted 'go-to guy', when the careers of not only Black Caps, but Australian, Indian or European athletes are on the line.
Operating on cricketers' backs is a minor part of Schouten's public and private surgical role at St George's Hospital, but it can have major consequences for a player's livelihood.
Schouten operates on 2-3 cricketers a year.
"When you think we do 200-300 operations a year, it's a very small niche market as far as our workload goes, but it's been an interesting role that's sort of built up over the last 10 years or so."
While mostly involved with cricket, Schouten has contributed to other sports.
"We know the spine struggles to tolerate hyperextension loading in a lot of sports," he said. "Stress fractures are not something that are isolated to cricket.
"We see it in dancers, we see it in other sports, like gymnastics and tennis and volleyball, basketball, but certainly cricketers, they're probably the high
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