Experience You Can Trust: Dr. Burger at Xavier University

March 22, 2024

Establishing a relationship with a trusted team of medical providers is essential. While qualifications and specialties are important, building and maintaining a meaningful and effective patient-provider relationship is crucial.

Beacon Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine’s Dr. Robert Burger is a great example of how patient care is founded upon experience, and then nurtured and grown through true relationship-building.

“I played football at the University of Notre Dame,” Dr. Burger said. “And I was lucky not to have been seriously injured. However, I had teammates who were.” His words were heartfelt when he talked about how the team’s physician cared for those young men and their families as they navigated toward healing and a hopeful return competing. 

He went on to study and practice medicine, get married, and raise four sons (all with dreams of playing college athletics). And for each, that dream became a reality. Over the years, Dr. Burger’s roles then included coach and parent.

Throughout the years and varied experiences, he’s honed skills like listening attentively, empathizing, and addressing concerns fully and kindly. His perspectives as an athlete, teammate, parent, coach, and physician influence every relationship he forms with patients to this day. “I treat the entire family when an athlete gets injured,” Dr. Burger said. 

He has been on both sides of the ball, so to speak.

“Xavier University is really good at supporting student-athletes, and not just in their moments of success, but when they experienced failure,” he shared. “And it’s gratifying to me when a student-athlete comes back and says, ‘Hey Doc, thank you.’ That means a lot.” 

Experiencing how he, his teammates, and his sons were treated by teams’ medical staff members helped direct how he now provides care. His commitment to forging trusting relationships with patients started all those years ago in South Bend and continues to this day where he serves as Medical Director and Head Team Physician at Xavier University.

A trusting relationship is everything.