On April 27, 2025, a small group of children gathered on the basketball court of Ed W. Clark High School to try redefining what their lives could be. The inaugural “Dr. Jai Basketball: It’s for Everyone!” camp marked the beginning of an initiative meant to empower autistic children who are often underserved in traditional athletic environments, such as in the Las Vegas community.
As a co-chief resident in the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV Department of Family & Community Medicine and the first family medicine residency sports medicine track resident, I founded this camp with the modest intention of merging athletics, medicine, and mentorship. I created an accommodating schedule to help teach basketball fundamentals – such as basic shooting mechanics, dribbling, and passing – to children with autism. The goal is to eventually create scalable models such as these with the aim of replicating them both regionally and nationally to ultimately cater to a variety of populations.
I am grateful for the several medical students and medical assistants who helped me facilitate this event, as the impact was immediate for some of the children’s families. One mother tearfully shared that she wished the program was weekly so that her son could freely continue exploring uncharted waters, while a father proudly expressed that his daughter experienced a unique sense of belonging.
Personally, this was not just a first-time camp. It was a warm study pilot – both a service and springboard meant to prompt a new wave of sports medicine research. I remain inspired by the chance to innovate while helping kids who deserve access to tools, mentors, and joy. After experiencing my own athletic injuries during my youth, I began coaching children with and without physical and developmental disabilities, and through these experiences, I found a love for coupling performance science advancement with the creation of encompassing environments.
While most youth sports clinics serve the general population, few are specifically designed to augment the performance of those with special needs. My evolving work, spanning the integration of musculoskeletal and cardiovascular biomechanics in the context of emerging technology, aims to incorporate my vision of developing wearable devices and utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to personalize training to create safer and more data-informed competition for all. There are untapped analytics in these youth settings that can not only improve individual outcomes but also help shape new standards for sports medicine across the board. It might indeed be the variability we find in niche populations that paradoxically contributes to the new standard at large.
My work is often supported by strong institutional mentorship. Dr. Wade Gaal, chief medical officer of UNLV Athletics and program director of the primary care sports medicine fellowship, was instrumental in launching the sports medicine track that I am currently on. Gaal, in addition to several faculty within our department, have supported many of my ideas since I moved here to Las Vegas. Gaal wants me to keep innovating and set the tone for others interested in pursuing the track within the family medicine residency program so they too can find their direction. Another mentor who helped drive this specific initiative forward is Dr. Lianne Ong, assistant professor in the Department of Family & Community Medicine, as she has a passion for and deeply rooted personal connection to the autistic population. Ong is someone whom I have grown close to, and she routinely encourages me to push onward.
Discussions are already underway to obtain additional funding for more camps, and I am thinking of future iterations that will involve adaptive sports extending to disabled veteran athletes as well. My team and I are developing a digital platform for those interested in connecting with us in the future for more information. Through all of this, I will continue to strive for a world where sports medicine leaves no one behind and hope to expand the wonderful network of people already helping me develop the infrastructure to accomplish this.
