David Altchek, longtime Mets doctor and Tommy John surgeon, dead at 68

Dr. David Altchek, who performed more than 2,000 Tommy John surgeries and was the Mets longtime medical director, died Thursday. He was 68.

His death was announced by the Hospital for Special Surgery, where he was co-chief emeritus. Altchek told associates last year he had been diagnosed with a brain tumor.

He was the Mets head team physician from 1991-2001 and medical director from 2005-24, physician of the U.S. Davis Cup team from 1999-2003 and North American medical director of the ATP Tour. Altchek was co-chief of HSS’s sports medicine and shoulder service from 2005-14.

“While Dr. Altchek’s intelligence and innovations certainly benefited his patients — and sports medicine in general — his biggest impact was his warm, friendly, caring personality,” said Glenn S. Fleisig, biomechanics research director of the American Sports Medicine Institute. “Colleagues, friends, and patients all loved David and are thankful for the time we had with him.”

A son of orthopedic surgeon Martin Altchek, David attended Middletown High School in New York, received his undergraduate degree at Columbia and his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College in 1982. He interned at The New York Hospital and became a resident at HSS, where he had a fellowship under Dr. Russell Warren, HSS’s surgeon in chief from 1993-03 and a longtime team physician of the New York Giants.

“My first Tommy John surgery was in 1993, and I did the procedure that Dr. Jobe, Dr. Frank Jobe prescribed,” Altchek said during a 2024 interview with The Associated Press. “It took 2 1/2 hours and I was exhausted. And I realized then that we had to do something about Tommy John surgery. We had to make it a little bit easier.”

Working with residents and fellows, Altchek developed what was called a docking procedure and tested it on about 100 elbows.

“It worked and it worked amazingly well,” Altchek said. “We really did not change it at all for 20-something years.”

Altchek estimated last year he had performed more than 2,400 Tommy John surgeries. He was a preferred surgeon for the Tommy John procedure in recent years along with Texas Rangers physician Dr. Keith Meister and Los Angeles Dodgers head team physician Dr. Neal ElAttrache.

Part of Altchek’s job was to reassure a player his baseball career was not over.

“You tell them this is unfortunate, but this is your MRI. This is probably why it happened — meaning you threw outside the envelope of your tissue quality,” he explained. “But we have a procedure that can repair your ligament and reconstruct it in a kind of belt, suspenders way that once it heals the likelihood of you going back to pitching at the same level or above is 95%.”

Altchek received Columbia’s John Jay Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement in 2003.

He is survived by his wife, the former Anne Salmson, whom he married in 1981, sons Charles and Christopher, and daughters Chloe and Sophie. Charles is president of Major League Soccer’s third-tier MLS Next Pro minor league and was the Ivy League men’s soccer player of the year while at Harvard in 2005 and 2006.