An Interview with Dr. Gloria Beim
This winter, we had the chance to connect with Dr. Gloria Beim, an extraordinary local orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist. Dr. Beim’s journey led her to the Gunnison Valley, where her passion for healing and innovation flourished. As a trailblazer in her field, she has served as the Chief Medical Officer and Head Team Physician for Team USA at numerous Olympic Games and international sporting events.
Her story is one of resilience, expertise, and an unwavering commitment to patient care. From overcoming gender barriers in orthopedic surgery to mastering foreign languages to better serve athletes, Dr. Beim exemplifies leadership and compassion. Her work is a testament to the power of following one's heart, dreaming big, and connecting with others.
Bluebird had the privilege of featuring her story in this winter’s edition of Bluebird Days Magazine. Read the full article below to learn more!
Dr. Gloria Beim: Olympic Sized Dreams
By Nancy Bush
The quantity of super-humans living among us every day in this valley never ceases to amaze me. From world-class athletes and musicians to world record holding arctic explorers to our own world-renowned, globetrotting, Olympic super physician to the stars, Dr. Gloria Beim. Dr. Beim is our local board-certified Orthopedic Surgeon and Specialist in Sports Medicine and Arthroscopy – who also happens to have spent the last 28 years working with professional teams at elite sporting events all over the world. She served as the US Team Physician for the 2004 Olympics in Athens, the Venue Medical Director for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, the Chief Medical Officer for Team USA at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi and, most recently, the US Head Team Physician at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. She has also served as either the Chief Medical Officer or Head Team Physician for the USA Paralympics in Rio, PyeongChang, Tokyo and Beijing, and as a team physician for USA Cycling, Winter X Games, and US Ski and Snowboard teams. Break your toe here, and you can go to Dr. Beim’s office on Elk Avenue for some Olympic level care and attention – and maybe even a new boot! That same doctor consistently treats the best elite athletes all over the world.
In meeting with Dr. Beim, you immediately get a glimpse of the strong, confident, warm and friendly bedside manner that must have helped propel her to such lofty and trusted appointments – that is, in addition to her extensive education and expertise in her field. She is energetic and engaging, inquisitive and unassuming. Her sharp focus and gusto started at a young age! As a teenager, growing up in California’s San Fernando Valley, she skipped high school and began college at 14 years of age. She attended medical school at the University of California San Diego before completing a residency at New York’s Columbia University and a fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Sports Medicine where she is board-certified with additional training in complex knee, shoulder, joint and sports-related injuries.
Dr. Beim moved to Crested Butte in 1996 and, shortly thereafter, founded Alpine Orthopedics and Sports Medicine which has expanded to include three patient locations in Crested Butte, Gunnison and Telluride and the opening of Alpine Surgery Center in Gunnison in 2006. As of April 1, 2024, Dr. Beim is now under the Gunnison Valley Health umbrella at Gunnison Valley Orthopedics. But, these astounding accomplishments are just the tip of the iceberg for Dr. Beim – who surpassed all odds to get where she is.
Follow your Heart
Gloria Beim is unabashedly open. She describes herself growing up in Southern California as pathologically shy – resulting in terrible bullying from her peers. Headstrong and, obviously, wise beyond her years, she took herself out of that environment, worked diligently through an alternative Montessori school, and began college at the age of 14. Her strength and drive seemed to come naturally. Both of her parents survived the Holocaust – her dad survived several concentration camps, including Auschwitz, during which time he lost his father and, later, lost his younger brother three days before the Russians arrived to liberate the camp. Dr. Beim’s father taught her to be especially grateful for her blessings and freedom, to follow her heart, and to work hard.
Inspired by her family, Dr. Beim did all three - but not without facing some significant obstacles and prejudices. She just couldn’t and wouldn’t take “no” for an answer – starting with her petition to begin her college courses at 14. Allowed to fully enroll by the age of 16, her life changed. She made friends, found her niche, and felt respected. Having suffered a devastating knee injury from a car accident that required multiple surgeries, she knew she wanted to become an orthopedic surgeon. When she told her own orthopedic surgeon her desire, he told her, “Women don’t do orthopedics. They aren’t strong enough.” She would hear that over and over again. And, in fact, at that time, orthopedics was not just male dominated, less than one percent of all orthopedic surgeons were female. Not one to back down, the day Dr. Beim’s doctor told her she couldn’t do it, Dr. Beim joined the gym and became a body builder. She got super strong and started medical school at 20. Even now, only 6% of orthopedic surgeons are female.
Medical school was also male dominated. In order to obtain one of the hardest residencies possible – in orthopedic surgery – she took some grief about her supposed limitations as a woman, worked harder than anyone else, and left with an orthopedic residency at Columbia University – one of the best in the country! At the end of medical school, she asked the head of General Surgery at UC San Diego why he was so hard on her – on women. He said, “Well, I train surgeons. You’re going to come around a**holes like me the rest of your career, and I have to make sure you can handle them.” That she had! He had ultimately written an amazing recommendation for her for her residency in orthopedics at Columbia. After her 5-year residency, she began a sports medicine fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh with Dr. Freddie Fu, a world-renowned sports medicine pioneer. She was the very first female in his program – breaking that glass ceiling. With such an amazing fellowship with Dr. Fu, she could write her ticket. She received offers from Mayo Clinic, UCLA and other major medical centers. But THAT . . . was not her dream.
Dream Big
During the last year of Dr. Beim’s residency at Columbia, she discovered Crested Butte. On her very first visit, she felt something in her soul. Paradise had opened up and her heart told her that she had to live here. So, after her fellowship, she left all of the major medical centers behind and opened her own sports medicine practices in the Gunnison Valley. She would also open a sports medicine practice in Telluride, and, in 2006, Alpine Surgery Center in Gunnison. Dr. Beim has been our valley’s orthopedic specialist for over 28 years.
But, let’s not stop there! Dr. Beim also dreamed of being an elite sports team doctor – an Olympic Team doctor. So, it happened. In 1997, Dr. Beim received a call from a former colleague in New York with a connection to the USA Cycling Team in Colorado Springs. They needed a new doctor. So, Dr. Beim interviewed with them, and, for the next 15 years, traveled all over the world with them as their Team Physician. It was an unbelievable training ground as she learned to navigate her job in foreign countries. There was no handbook, no guidebook, no instruction manual. Every country is different. It requires a lot of improvising, and thinking on your feet. Every year, she learned more.
Her sights were now on the Olympic Games. She applied with the US Olympic Committee and, after attending a required 2-week volunteer post at the Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center and a “trial” appointment at a smaller venue - as the Team Physician for the US Ski Team at the World University Games, she was asked to serve as the US Team Physician at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. A dream beyond dreams for a sports medicine doctor. Unable to serve in 2008 due to pregnancy, she returned in 2012 as the Venue Medical Director for the Olympic Games in London, the Chief Medical Officer for Team USA at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, and the US Head Team Physician at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. She has also served as either the Chief Medical Officer or Head Team Physician for the USA Paralympics in Rio, PyeongChang, Tokyo and Beijing. It’s not hard to see why she is continuously asked to return to this position sought after by so many in her field. Foremost, there just simply is no ego. None. She is sharp, experienced, unflappable, and tremendously friendly. Oh, and, by the way, she enjoys learning the languages of the countries she visits. She has learned Russian, French, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese in order to communicate with the locals and more effectively serve the athletes. As she puts it, “You can’t believe what I can get done because I have learned the local language.”
She describes her most recent position as US Head Team Physician in Paris as one of her favorites. Her job was to run the US Sports Medicine Clinic in the Olympic Village, caring for nearly 600 US athletes and making sure everyone received the top-level care they needed as expeditiously as possible. She was gone for a month. She was strictly a volunteer. She did get a small amount of time with her family, but, primarily, she worked 18 to 20 hours a day. She said, “I’m the luckiest girl in the world!”
We could talk for hours about her experiences, the things she has seen, the people she has met. Some favorite memories include watching Simone Biles win the gold medal right in front of her, watching the equestrian championships at the Palace of Versailles or the beach volleyball games under the Eiffel Tower, and watching the US Women’s Soccer Team win the gold medal game with her family. At the time of our interview, she was headed to the White House with the 2024 Summer Olympic Team to meet with President Biden. In serving the US Olympic Team she has also met President Barack Obama and President Vladimir Putin – to whom she introduced herself in Russian and, also in Russian, said “How about world peace?”
Connect
My assessment - Dr. Beim doesn’t meet a stranger. Maybe it’s the result of her family’s heritage and incomprehensible experiences that she feels so strongly that you must remember your humanity and seek it out in others. “Life is about people,” she says, and connecting with others is so important. She says that it requires you to be brave and vulnerable, but “This is how ideas get generated, problems get solved, people get inspired, and the world gets changed.” Just one example of Dr. Beim’s conviction to connect is her effort to learn the languages of the foreign countries she visits for the Olympics in order to better serve her athletes, to communicate effectively in times of need, and to bond with locals on a higher level. She describes the locals in Sochi, Russia as amazing and when they discovered that she – as an American – was speaking to them in Russian, they loved her!
At the US Olympic Games in London, she treated the tallest pole vaulter in the world, US team member, Jeremy Scott, who had a chronic knee injury. It would be his last Olympics. After the games, he came to Gunnison – to Dr. Beim – for continued medical treatment. I’m sure he loved her. He told her that he always dreamed of going to medical school, especially for sports medicine. So, true to form, she invited him to come shadow her for a few weeks – to see how he liked it. Now, he’s a 4th year orthopedic resident. When he graduated from medical school, he invited Dr. Beim to his robing ceremony – asking her to do the honors. She had to stand on a chair to reach over his head! In a word, . . . connect.
In our community, Dr. Beim, the founder of Alpine Orthopedics, has generously supported numerous kids’ sports teams, including soccer teams, ski teams and bike teams, as well as the local Adaptive Sports programs. At Western Colorado University and the local high schools in Gunnison County, Dr. Beim has provided free injury clinics and sports physical exams for athletes for over 25 years. She has also supported numerous other groups and causes in our valley, including those supporting local cancer patients and providing mental health care services.
At home, Dr. Beim is married with 2 children. Her older daughter, Skylar, is now 22 and is Dr. Beim’s full-time Medical Assistant and Scrub Technician in Alpine Surgery Center – with dreams of becoming an Orthopedic PA. Her son, Jakob, is the goalie for the local high school soccer team. They are all athletic and love the valley for its beauty, endless opportunities for outdoor adventure, and the time they get to spend together enjoying it as a family. Dr. Beim loves water sports on the Blue Mesa (surfing and foiling), riding horses, skiing, biking, and enjoying the outdoors. She describes the valley as a dream land and a wonderful place to raise children.
At the end of our meeting, I told Dr. Beim that I couldn’t believe she was the previously painfully shy, self-isolating child she described. She said, “Well, I’ve changed!” When I thanked this incredibly busy doctor for her time, she replied ever so humbly, “Oh! Thank you! I’m so honored that you want me to be in your magazine!” In her 2019 Graduation Commencement Speech at Western Colorado University, Dr. Beim gave the new graduates 3 bits of advice: Follow your passion and work hard; dream big; and connect with others. Practices that have served and continue to serve her well. As I am sure was the case with those graduates, I couldn’t leave our meeting without feeling truly energized and inspired. She said, “You know my favorite quote? There is not a lot of competition in the extra mile!”
View Bluebird Days Volume 14 here.
