Ending a career, beginning a new life
OHSU has a prominent place in a just-published ESPN The Magazine feature story on former major league baseball player Ben Petrick, who has Parkinson’s disease.
Petrick, a star catcher for the Colorado Rockies in the late 1990s and early 2000s, is from Hillsboro, Ore., and started developing young-onset Parkinson’s almost from the time he entered the major leagues. The disease eventually forced his retirement from baseball in 2004.
Dr. Jay Nutt and Julie Carter from the OHSU Parkinson Center of Oregon were prominently featured in the piece. Nutt and Carter treat Petrick and his father, Vern, who also has Parkinson’s.
The story also details Petrick’s successful Deep Brain Stimulation surgery at OHSU, which was performed by Dr. Kim Burchiel, chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery.
