JIM PLUEMER - UCI SPORTS MEDICINE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
"Ray Roman was a student athletic trainer for me during his undergraduate years, completing his hours and becoming certified under the internship route. He did over 1500 hours starting in his freshman year of 1998-99 until the spring of 2001. During his time in our program he worked men's basketball. During the summer of 2001, our team did an international trip to Canada, and none of the staff wanted to go. I ask Ray to go as the first aider and ankle taper and he did. When he reached 1500, he quit the training room and just completed school. Boy I was fired up, as I lost my best student volunteer, but he reached his goal to be an ATC and went onto the next challenge. Graduated with a BS in Chemistry and minor in Psych in 2003. Very good student in a hard, hard major at UC Irvine. He went on to PT school. Recently completed his training in acupuncture, after training in dry needling, and not being able to do legally in CA. He has more credentials that any of my former students, as he pushes himself to be better.
I think my own personal experience will tell you best what I think. I had a cervical fusion on 2 levels (C45, C56) in 2005. Unfortunately, the job is taking its toll on an 'old trainer'. After many years of not having any symptoms, and just being very careful with my neck, I had a return of symptoms. It was when UCI went to the Baseball college world series 2 years ago. As is traditional, I had lost my baseball guy to a "lateral move" when he accepted an assistant athletic trainer position to the Washington Redskins in the middle of our baseball season. I was traveling, dragging my bag into and out of a small practice facility and had a return of radicular symptoms. I was scared to death when the tingling returned. I followed up with my surgeon, did a repeat MRI and was referred for PT. I went to see Ray at ProSport. He treated me for several weeks, my radicular symptoms resolved and I have been good since. Recently, he also has seen me for my L knee OA w/ Integrative Sports Acupuncture sessions through Balance Point Therapy which seemed to alleviate the intense weight bearing symptoms during walking activities. I will still need a TKA in the future, but his treatments have made it tolerable to perform my work activities until I have my surgery. I thought he would be the best fit for me personally, and I have over 100 alumni of my program that went onto PT, MD, PA, ATC, RN, DO, DDS, Etc. He was great to me. He is a gifted clinician, a good family guy and driven to continue to learn. For years he has been doing his netz 4 Life philanthropic work, which is a really awesome program."