PHYSICIAN SPOTLIGHT: Jason Paul McConnell, MD

SERENAH McKAY

PHYSICIAN SPOTLIGHT: Jason Paul McConnell, MD | Jason Paul McConnell; Saline Orthopaedics Group; University of Arkansas at Fayetteville; University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Orthopaedic Surgeon, Saline Orthopaedics Group

At the end of his first week working at Saline Orthopaedics Group in Benton, Jason Paul McConnell, MD, sounds tired but happy.
 
His time is divided between the main office located in Saline Memorial Hospital and the practice’s satellite clinics in Malvern and Sherwood. But practicing medicine is the easy part for this young doctor.
 
The hard part, he said, is “figuring out all this other stuff, like billing. It’s just a big learning curve on the business aspect of it.”
 
McConnell, 34, has never shied away from challenges, though. A star athlete and student in high school and college, he left a career playing professional baseball to attend medical school.
 
“That was probably the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make,” McConnell said. “I wasn’t great (as a player), but I was pretty versatile,” he said. “But I just wasn’t happy with the situation.”
 
After three and a half years playing for a minor league team in Cape Cod, Mass., he had a pivotal talk with his dad.
 
“I said if I made it to the big leagues tomorrow, I don’t know if I would want to go,” McConnell recalls.
 
Coming from a tight-knit family, he wanted a family of his own one day. And the life of a major league ball player wouldn’t be conducive to the lifestyle he had in mind.
 
“I started looking at how I wanted my life to be as I got older, and I didn’t see how I could have the kind of family life I wanted,” he said. “I thought about it a lot and prayed about it, so I decided to do a ‘180’ after 24 years and see if I could get into med school.”
 
Sports had been a major part of his life about as long as he could remember. He grew up in the small town of Magnolia, Ark., where his dad, Cecil, was a chemical engineer and his mom, Ginger, was a beautician. Both his parents were supportive of him and his little brother, Kirk.
 
“I had a very stable childhood,” McConnell said. “My parents always put us first.”
 
His father coached most of the teams McConnell played on, and even built a batting cage in the back yard so he and Kirk could hone their baseball skills.
 
“I told him early on I wanted to play college baseball, and he said, ‘Well if that’s what you want, you’d better go for it,’” McConnell said. “One of the things that probably shaped me the most was my parents and the work ethic they instilled in me.”
 
Another important relationship began just before high school when, while attending church camp, he met the girl who eventually became his wife. As it turned out, Laney was a cheerleader for Magnolia’s chief rival, Malvern. Since McConnell was Magnolia’s quarterback, the pair attracted lots of attention when they attended each other’s school dances.
 
After graduating in 1994, both went on to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. McConnell majored in microbiology because he knew he wanted to do something in the medical field, such as physical therapy or pharmacy.
 
Although he played baseball for the Razorbacks, he attended college on an academic scholarship, which was more generous than an athletic scholarship. He had to study hard to keep his grades up while playing 52 games a season and spending long hours on a bus traveling to and from games.
 
He lettered every year, but a memory that stands out the most was getting the first hit and scoring the first run in the UA’s newly built Baum Stadium at George Cole Field.
 
“It was just circumstances,” he said with characteristic modesty. “I was just the first one up that day.”
 
Each summer, McConnell played for the Cape Cod league, and the summer after his junior year, they made him an offer. He signed the contract that launched his pro ball career, but leaving school was hard, he said.
 
He and Laney continued to date during those years, although not exclusively.
 
“I didn’t always know I was going to marry her, but I always knew she was more special than any of the other girls I dated,” he said gallantly.
 
Laney once asked him why he didn’t go to medical school, but all the years of school and training required seemed daunting to him.
 
He had lots of time to think about it, though, while on the road.
 
“Over time, my thinking started to change and I thought it didn’t seem so long any more,” he said.
 
McConnell returned to Fayetteville, completed the three semesters he needed to finish his bachelor’s degree, and was accepted into medical school at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.
 
He and Laney got engaged during his first year in med school when she was in her third year of law school in Fayetteville. They married the following year “when the Hogs weren’t playing,” he said.
 
The couple now has two daughters: Merritt Grace, 4, and Mary Charles, or “Charley,” who is 1.
 
Having been a professional athlete played a huge part in his decision to specialize in orthopaedics, he said, because he’d gotten to know some orthopaedic surgeons during his sports career.
 
Also, “a lot of what we do is improve lives or improve quality of life,” he said. “And that was something that drew me. Orthopaedics was something that I knew when I went to med school. It was high on my list. It’s very competitive, but I was fortunate I did well enough to get into it.”
 
While he enjoys being able to work with athletes, he doesn’t see himself concentrating on sports medicine in the future. Instead, he likes general orthopaedics because he gets to do a little bit of everything. And he points out that most people start off doing general orthopaedics when they actually begin to practice.
 
“Once you start building your practice and seeing more patients, you can focus more on what you like to do,” he said. “I like the shoulder arthroscopic surgery, and would like to do more of it as I go along.”
 
In the meantime, he has the family he always wanted, and in his free time indulges his other passion – duck hunting. His black Labrador retriever, Shug, keeps him company on those outings, but he proudly says both his daughters can already blow a duck call.