Going for Gold: Kaiser Permanente MD, Son, In Israel's Maccabiah Games

When Dr. Anthony Abene thinks of a recent trip to the Macabbiah Games, known as the Jewish Olympics, he can’t help but smile for two reasons: First, his son, Jake, 18, won a gold medal in international hockey. Second, he brought Kaiser Permanente’s sports medicine expertise onto a world sports stage.

“It was great to go to Israel as both a team doctor and a father,” said Abene, an orthopaedic surgeon at Kaiser Permanente San Jose who was the team physician for the U.S. hockey players and others at the 20th Maccabiah Games, an international gathering played since 1932.

About 10,000 Jewish athletes from 80 countries competed in 40 different sports, after qualifying at local competition in their home countries.

With his experience working as a team physician for the hockey team San Jose Sharks and its AFL affiliate, San Jose Barracudas, Dr. Abene was a natural choice to be the team physician for his son’s team in Israel.

Jake started playing hockey as a San Jose Junior Shark. He played on the hockey team at Bellarmine College Prep in San Jose, and will be on the hockey team at the University of Southern California next year.

Dr. Abene credits Kaiser Permanente with allowing him to get international health care experience as a team physician. “Hockey can be a rough game, but fortunately, there were no major injuries at the games,” he said, but his local hockey experience with the Sharks and Barracuda teams came in handy. “One young player had to be helped off the ice and the local medics were reluctant to enter the slippery rink, so I went in and got him and helped him to an ambulance.”

Dr. Abene said that player wasn’t badly hurt after all, just shaken up. As team physician for the Open, Junior, and Masters teams, Dr. Abene was busy.

For the first time, the hockey games were played in Jerusalem, in a 12,000-seat basketball arena temporarily converted to an ice hockey event for the Maccabiah Games.

“They said it was the first time there was ice in Jerusalem, “said Dr. Abene, “And Jake’s game was played in front of 10,000 fans and televised live on Israeli TV.”

When his son’s team won the gold medal in the Open Division, Dr. Abene said it was exciting to watch Jake and his team-mates all don the American flag for their victory.