An ACL tear used to mean one thing: surgery, a long rehab, and a lot of uncertainty about getting back to the sports you love. In this episode Dr. Schultz is joined by Dr. John McDonald, a fellowship-trained sports medicine surgeon at Texas Orthopedics, for a plain-language look at where ACL treatment stands today.

They cover how surgeons decide between surgery and rehab, the graft choices patients are asked to make, what the first year of recovery is honestly like, the return-to-sport question for both teenagers and adults, and the newer techniques that may change how tears are treated in the next few years. If you or your child has just torn an ACL, this is the conversation to have before your first surgeon visit.