CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Every day at Advanced Pain Management of Virginia, Dr. Scott Wagner is helping patients find long, lasting relief from their pain.

The work he doing now is the culmination of a long journey, in which Wagner explored a variety of medical disciplines and experience. But even with the amount of expertise that he holds now, he said he’s “not a guy who wears his degrees on his sleeves.”

“The thing [that] was interesting to me was the knowledge I was getting and how to apply it,” he said.

From the diamond to medical school

Before fully venturing into the medical field, Wagner was a college baseball player working toward his master’s in sports medicine. Upon completing his degree, it was his extra year-and-a-half of eligibility that pushed him to apply to medical school at Vanderbilt, as the suggestion of one of his professors. At first, he laughed at the idea, but ended up going, studying the general basics of medicine before getting into an orthopedic program.

Wagner would later enroll into a PhD program on biomechanics, leading to his next adventure — The 1996 Olympic Game in Atlanta.

Discovering another passion

Wagner was in Atlanta during the Olympics to run a biomechanical medical division. By his own admission, he wasn’t initially supposed to get the job and was only at the game initially to represented Vanderbilt’s biomechanical department. But while working there, he met the International Olympic Committee’s three chiropractors, marking what Wagner called “a really pivotal point in my career.”

While working alongside them. Wagner learned all about the treatments the chiropractors were providing using cutting-edge technology at the time. He became fascinated with the process, watching the chiropractors adjust shoulders and necks to relieve pain in other parts of the body like the back. After the Olympics, he decided to combine his existing medical knowledge with his newfound knowledge of chiropractic, which he said no one was doing at the time.

Finding his path

Since then, Wagner has built his career on the knowledge he has gained, helping patients find long-lasting relief from their pain without the need for surgery. He has also worked as a chiropractor at the University of Virginia, combining his background in sports medicine with his knowledge of chiropractic. Looking back on it all, Wagner is happy with how he got here.

“I wouldn’t change my pathway because I had to learn how to do this, this way,” he said. “And what we’ve adapted is this non-surgical approach to orthopedics and spine, and it’s almost bullet-proof, because I’ve seen thousands and thousands of cases.”