Interview with Dr. Balu Natarajan
Guest Name: Dr. Balu Natarajan
Guest Credentials: Board-certified in internal medicine, primary care sports medicine, and hospice & palliative medicine. Founder of Chicago Sports Doctors and affiliated with The Running Institute.
Discussion Details: Dr. Natarajan shares his Chicago roots, his philosophy of empowering patients, and how his “practice without walls” allows him to connect athletes and active individuals with the right care — whether that’s PT, imaging, surgery consults, or performance support.
Benefits of Watching: If you’re dealing with an injury, training for an event, or simply want a trusted partner in your health, this conversation highlights what thoughtful, community-based care looks like — and how having the right team behind you can make all the difference.
Address of Guest’s Business: Chicago Primary Care Sports Medicine
111 North Wabash, Suite 1919
Chicago, IL 60602
Dr. Balu Natarajan: My pleasure. I I love that the focus is on community. It’s uh it’s a big city, but ultimately it’s a small town. So, that’s super cool. really not a big city when it comes to sort of what we do in terms of PT and stuff like that. I find like there’s really well there’s a number of us that sort of the people that I feel comfortable referring to is sort of become very select and you’re definitely been on that list for a long time. So uh I I wanted to we you have such an interesting background in terms of what your practice is. You’re uh a primary care sports medicine doctor as well as an internal medicine but you also have a super interesting practice around uh end of life care from my understanding. So I’ll let you sort of give us if you would your background a little bit.
Dr. Balu Natarajan: Yeah, I I was so you know maybe most importantly born and raised in Chicago and so you and I are kindred spirits as we uh hopefully approach a Cubs season that continues to extend, but we’ll find out. Uh so born and raised born at St. Joseph Hospital right on Lakeshore Drive and uh you know went to Northwestern for med school and residency and then I’ve been in clinical practice in Chicago since 2003. So I’ve done hospital medicine, occupational medicine, I still maintain boards in internal medicine, primary care sports medicine and then hospice and paliative medicine. And so I am in my endurance practice um which is the majority of what I wind up doing is taking care of runners and cyclists and such. But we do pretty much everything muscular, skeletal, uh, and primary care for our athletes if they want it, if they don’t have a PCP. Um, and I’m there a couple of days a week and then the rest of the time my work is as chief medical officer of a large 31st state company based in Dallas that does home health, hospice, uh, private duty and paliative care. So I’m responsible for clinicians and nonclinians all over the country. So it gives me a balance micro and macro.
Adam Wolf: That’s great. Do you like one versus the other in terms of practicing sort of oneto one or versus sort of helping others to practice or running the piece of it?
Dr. Balu Natarajan: I love it all. I I feel very very blessed to have an opportunity to do all of it and it is I I have had the just amazing opportunity in a few families to take care of the 20some preparing for a marathon, their parent dealing with arthritis and their grandparent with Alzheimer’s who then wound up on our hospice service. So it it’s not a long list, but uh we’ve actually wound up having a few folks where I have had the opportunity to take care of multiple generations either personally or through my team. Which uh I would never have been able to script that when I applied to medical school way back in the 90s.
Adam Wolf: That’s pretty incredible. Yeah. I like one of the favorite ways I’ve been described as as the family physical therapist is I treated the mom and the dad and the kids and you know they it’s really fun. I was actually a professional athlete. I was at the game and their parents introduced me as the family physical therapist which was a lot of fun.
Dr. Balu Natarajan: That’s awesome. Love it.
Adam Wolf: Yeah. Yeah. What uh what is a process in Chicago? Like if I wanted to come to you as an athlete doctor, what’s the process of working with you look like? Just to give people listening a description of
Dr. Balu Natarajan: Yeah, we keep it pretty simple. So, you know, in our practice, we are old school in some ways. Uh my three staff members collectively have been with me for over 50 years. So, we don’t have an automated phone line. We don’t have automated scheduling. There’s I actually use technology for lots of things. Certainly in my chief medical officer work, but we have kept the practice really old school. So if you email us, you will get us you get an email back. If you call us, um we will answer the telephone and uh and we try to get you in right away. And then it’s really a matter of our appointments are pretty quick where they’re efficient. So you what’s going on, what specifically is the issue? And then the whole goal, if you look at our website and the mission statement, it’s to empower you. So my philosophy all the way back to 2003 has been we we can’t possibly work harder than the athlete or the patient at their health, but we’re going to work really hard to help you find the right direction. So, you know, we will let you know what is going on, where your muscular skeletal deficits are, what additional testing you might need, and then who’s a good partner who can help you get there, whether that’s a dietitian, a physical therapist, a personal trainer, um you know, a primary care physician if that’s in in some cases that’s beyond what we can do if something really complex is going on. Um, but really our goal is how do we point you in the right direction so that you can then take it from there. And every now and then someone is a weird thing like you know paplial artery entrapment and I’ll say you actually need to go see Dr. Morgan up at the University of Wisconsin Madison because that’s the person who’s best for this. So, and we try our very very best to let you know here’s here’s where you got to get and we’ll empower you, but then if you hit a wall, we’re around to help you navigate through our crazy healthare system.
Adam Wolf: That’s great. That sort of leads into my next question for you. I think one of the things that I think you’ve done a really good job at just sort of as an observer and somebody who’s on that referral list. Fortunately, thank you very much by the way. Uh what what makes you different as a as a practitioner? I think that is one of the thing in my observation is that you have a strong referral network of people that you trust and have you know trust has been earned back and forth between you and that person typically but what what in maybe besides that and what makes you different
Dr. Balu Natarajan: I I think our interest in follow-th through a and I don’t know that practitioners elsewhere necessarily aren’t interested in followrough but we are fortunate where we’re a practice without walls. What I mean by that is I don’t have an employer that says I got to stick inside this system. I can only refer to this university or this referral network. Like we’re free agents in that regard. So if I need to send one patient to Rush but a different one, I think they’re best served at University of Chicago and then the third is best served at a community hospital or or a dedicated uh hip or knee institute out in the suburbs. I I am my hands are not tied. I’m not muzzled in any way. Right? So, I can say, “Hey, you know what? This is the best person for you to go to. You need an EMG or nerve study. You know, the best person for this is actually way out in the suburbs, and here’s the doc that if it was me that I would go to. It’s an hour away, but I would encourage you for the complexity that you have to go there. Here’s the dietitian you should meet. Here’s a running coach that you should meet with based on what it is that you’re trying to do.” Uh so it’s really the things that you know I believe have made our city amazing are relationships and the human beings in it and the ones who just love Chicago period. And so that’s something I think that we have this ability to just scale across the Chicago metro metro area and you know again having lived here over five decades that helps to be able to connect those dots.
Adam Wolf: Yeah I like that answer. Do you feel like you’re an ideal fit for any one type of patient or uh what’s an ideal type of patient that you prefer to work with? Is there one?
Dr. Balu Natarajan: Yeah. Our only rule is that uh you have to want to work as hard or harder than us at your health. That’s really it.
Adam Wolf: I like that.
Dr. Balu Natarajan: And so if you want me to do this more than you, you’re not going to get better, right? I can’t possibly make you better when you don’t want to get better. Now, if you want to if you want to come in and say, “I really do want to get better, but I haven’t the faintest idea how.” Okay, great. Motivation is all we need. If we have motivation, we’ll point you in the right direction. And and sometimes people will come to me and they’ll say, “I had one gal who came with a strange kind of abdominal muscle issue.” And she had gone from dock to dock to doc for, I don’t know, seven, eight years. Her primary care physician sent her our way. We sent her for PT. And I mean, she she was so down, right? She was depressed that she’s like, “All right, I’m here cuz my doc said to come here, but I don’t know. I’ve been around the block.” And we said, “Okay, well, this is what you should focus on. Let’s take some baby steps.” And she got better in like a month. That almost never happened. But in spite of being demoralized, she kept an open mind. And we kept an open mind. And and I told her, you know, this might this might take a year to figure out, but we will do this dance alongside you or with you as long as you were willing to do it. And and she kept such an open mind that she just she nailed it way faster than I ever
Adam Wolf: That’s amazing. And it’s like empowering. It’s like exciting for you and empowering for you to keep doing that and helping people when that you know when you have those type of results which you know are expected but not as often as maybe we’d like them to have them.
Dr. Balu Natarajan: That’s exactly right. And it’s, you know, one of my favorite recent stories. I had a guy came in. He he had a knee issue. Um, and he had seen a physical therapist. He had gone to a chiropractor. The chiropractor contacted me and said, “Hey, can you take a look at this guy because I’m not I’m not getting him better.” And when that chiropractor contacts me, it’s a big deal because he gets the vast vast majority of people better. And so I took a look at this guy and I said, “Well, I I actually think that it’s your kneecap. It’s not tracking right, and we’re just going to do some old school taping.” Adam uh we’ll geek out a little bit. It’s McConnell taping, right?
Adam Wolf: Yeah. I was going to say McConnell taper. Yeah.
Dr. Balu Natarajan: You know, which some of the newer PTs like kind of roll their eyes like, “Oh, this old dude’s using McConnell tape.” But in this particular case, it actually made sense. And uh I wanted to know, okay, was he getting better? And we sent an email and it sounded like he was. Well, a week later, I was encouraged uh perhaps um ill advised, but I was encouraged by a buddy of mine to do my first century ride. So, I ride on this thing and and I get up to Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, which is about mile 48. And um it’s one of the breaks and then I walk and I grab a bite and then there’s this guy. So, who I just seen 12 days earlier and I’m like, “All right, I guess the McConnell tape worked.” So, you know, that’s one of my favorite stories where it is a PT in the community we’ve worked with, a chiropractor in the community we’ve worked with, some old school stuff, and then a ride involving the Evston Bicycle Club, and then seeing this guy along the way. So, we took a picture, sent that picture on a Sunday to the chiropractor who was really thrilled to see his colleague and his um so, you know, that that’s really when it come kind of comes full circle, that’s what I mean when I say it’s ultimately a small town and we just all have to help.
Adam Wolf: Absolutely. Well, I I appreciate you taking the time today before we wrap up. The last question is like is there anything else that you want uh us to know or think that we should know about you or your service?
Dr. Balu Natarajan: We just appreciate the partnership. You know, one of the things that I think is important. You and I have served patients together, your staff as well, and you have sent folks my way where you say, “Hey, I think this person might need surgery, but I’d like your help connecting the dots.” And one of the things that we try to do is, hey, we’re going to send you I’m going to give you two surgeons, right? Take a look and then if you want us to help navigate after you’ve met them both, we’re happy to just listen and say, hey, you know, these are let’s walk through the pros and cons of each and help you to make that decision. So, we are more than happy to partner. Again, I I I can’t underscore enough how healthcare in 2025 in the United States is super complex and if we can be alongside and help people to make the right decision or feel better about the complicated decision they made, we are more than happy to help. We love this town and we love the people.
Adam Wolf: That was a great answer and I agree like there’s so many opinions out there and everyone has, you know, I think one of the things I try to help people to do is like recognize the different opinions that they’re getting and how, you know, help them to make the choices about it. So sir, I appreciate your time today. Thank you very much.
Dr. Balu Natarajan: Yeah, my pleasure.
Adam Wolf: Where can we find you? Like give us do you have social media or website or anything that you want to talk about?
Dr. Balu Natarajan: Website is simple chicagoportsdocctors.com and uh if you just go there all the rest of the contact information including uh email as well as phone are on there and uh you can also any of the running institutees social media you’ll be able to as well.
Adam Wolf: Very good. Yeah, it’s great. We’d even talk about the great group of doctors you work with uh at the Running Institute. So, sir, I appreciate your time. Thank you again and look forward to catching up with you again soon.
Dr. Balu Natarajan: Cool. Take care.