TEAM ACL - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Physical Therapist / Michael Falk
- Scientist / Nicky Van Melick
- Scientist / Wouter Welling
Michael's passion for sports medicine, rehabilitation and maximizing human performance led him to found Kinetic Sports Medicine and Performance to provide better care to athletes. He started his career as a member of the athletic training staff for the Green Bay Packers. As Michael wanted to expand his knowledge and expertise, he completed his physical therapy degree at Marquette University. Post-graduation, Michael worked as a physical therapist serving elite athletes at Laurus Athletic Rehab and Performance in Minneapolis.
Throughout his career, Michael has successfully cared for a wide range of athletes representing the NFL, NBA, MLS, MLB and MILB in addition to NCAA DI, DII and DIII athletes. He also has experience working with high school and recreational athletes to help them reach their goals. Michael has extensive experience in injury recovery and has worked to train athletes to prevent injury. He has a special interest in ACL, shoulder and hip rehabilitation, rehabilitation of muscle and tendon injuries, return-to-sport testing, and golf rehabilitation.
In addition to being a clinician, Michael is also an educator having taught in the Athletic Training Program at Marquette University, and presented at both the National Athletic Training Associations annual clinical Symposium and the Great Lake Athletic training symposium. He loves working with students and helping mentor the next generation of clinicians. And Michael is a husband and father and looks forward to getting his son involved in athletics!
Dr. Wouter Welling is a Sport Scientist (PhD) specialized in return to sports after an ACL reconstruction.
Dr. Wouter Welling is a Sport Scientist (PhD) with experience in both practical work and research. He worked for years in different practical settings like sports physical therapy clinics and sport clubs (soccer) where he tries to bring sport science into practise.
Wouter has experience with developing test methods for monitoring ACL patients (both physical and psychological), daily load monitoring and on-field rehabilitation. Besides the practical work, Wouter has done years of research on ACL patients, especially regarding return to sports.
In March 2022 he obtained a PhD for his work at the University of Groningen.
Currently, Wouter is working at Pro-F Fysiotherapie in Enschede where he combines practical work on ACL patients (testing/monitoring and on-field rehabilitation) with education and research.
Job Titles:
- Owner Team ACL & FC Kruisband
Job Titles:
- Researcher in Sports Orthopedics at the Sports & Orthopedics Research Center
- Scientist for Her Own Company KneeSearch
Nicky van Melick is a post-doc researcher in sports orthopedics at the Sports & Orthopedics Research Center of the Anna Hospital Geldrop/Eindhoven (the Netherlands). Her main research topic is treatment of athletes with anterior cruciate ligament injury, focussing both on surgery and rehabilitation. In her ideal world everyone with a knee injury recieves the best possible care, no matter where of with whom this would be!
Nicky is a lecturer and scientist for her own company KneeSearch and former sports physical therapist, with a special interest in treatment of anterior cruciate ligament and knee injuries. She regularly lectures about traumatic knee injuries and ACL rehabilitation, both nationally and internationally.
ACL nerd, interested in preventing ACL lesions as well as taking care of them (surgical & non surgical).
Since his first steps in his career into orthopedics in the mountains of St. Moritz, Switzerland, Tom is fascinated by this small, but cruciate ligament, which has a size of just a bit more than 1 inch (about 2,5 - 3cm).
Tom Patt was trained in Switzerland and The Netherlands, with Dr AU Urfer (St Moritz, CH), Dr P Burkart (Luzern, CH), Professor W Mueller, Prof N. Friederich (Basel, CH), Prof. RK Marti (Amsterdam, NL) & dr. Marcel Driessen (Delft, NL).
He has headed a private orthopedic clinic in Delft, The Netherlands since 2014. Tom's professional interests are sports knee surgery, and he has specialised in mainly arthroscopic knee interventions.
Since 2010, his other real orthopaedic passion has been prevention of knee lesions in children and adolescents. In this context he is vice president of ESMA/ESSKA (2022-24) and leads the workgroup for prevention, the GUARDIANS of the ACL (a subgroup of the ACL study group), as well as being member of other European organisations such as the German Knee Society.
Tom is often invited to speak at national and international meetings, in 2023 i.e.: Kaunas/Litouwen, London/UK, Estepona/Spain, Barcelona/Spain, Gdansk/Poland, /Poland, Warsaw/Poland, Essen/Germany, Faro/Portugal.
Tom Patt, MD, PhD, Orthopedic Surgeon is an ACL nerd. Since his first steps in his career into orthopedics is Tom fascinated by this small, but cruciate ligament. Nowadays he is arthroscopic knee specialist at bergmanclinics Rotterdam, treating mainly ACL and PCL lesions.
Next to this he is vice president of ESMA/ESSKA (2022-2024), member of the faculty for the ACL expert certificate of ESSKA, (co-)founder of 3 ACL prevention initiatives (join(t) forces, The Netherlands; stop-x, Germany & " prevention for all" , ESMA) and is a well known invited speaker in this field on many national and international congresses.