Lee Diehl, MD
For over 20 years, Dr. Diehl has focused his training and professional practice on Orthopaedic Sports Medicine. He has extensive experience working with athletes of all ages and abilities – from little league, prep school and weekend warriors to the collegiate, professional and Olympic level. Using minimally invasive arthroscopic surgery, Dr. Diehl specializes in the surgical treatment of sports related injuries of the shoulder and knee. Drawing on extensive experience as a military and civilian ‘Team Physician’ he works with each patient to understand, diagnose, and treat their activity limiting problems- keeping them in the game!
On the national level, Dr. Diehl is a member of the editorial board for the online Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine and a principle reviewer for the American Journal of Sports Medicine. He is a member of the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Sports Medicine Advisory Committee and a volunteer physician for the United States Olympic Committee. He has participated in basic science research on the treatment of ACL injuries of the knee and has authored major textbook and medical journal publications. He maintains sub-specialty certification in Sports Medicine by the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery and is active in the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine and the Society of Military Orthopaedic Surgeons.
On the regional and local level, Dr. Diehl is an Assistant Professor at Duke in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery’s Division of Sports Medicine and Head Team Physician for Elon University. As part of the Duke Sports Medicine High School Out-reach Program, he works with Cedar Ridge HS in Hillsborough. At Duke, Dr. Diehl takes an active role in the mission to educate university and medical students, Orthopaedic Surgery residents and Orthopaedic and Primary Care Sports Medicine fellows. In the community Dr Diehl has given lectures to Pediatricians and Family Medicine providers about the Sports Trauma and Overuse Prevention (STOP) Campaign, and serves on the Peer Review Committee at both Duke Regional Hospital and the Davis Ambulatory Surgery Center.
Born and raised in Denver Colorado, Dr. Diehl earned his undergraduate degree in biology and a minor in nutrition from Colorado State University. He then completed his Doctorate of Medicine with honors at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center after earning a competitive US Air Force Health Professions Scholarship, and was selected for the AOA Honor Medical Society.
On active duty with the Air Force, Dr. Diehl completed an internship in General Surgery and was stationed in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he practiced primary care as a Flight Surgeon for several years and deployed frequently throughout the world. He then completed his residency in Orthopaedic Surgery at UNC-Chapel Hill, followed by a year of sub-specialty fellowship training in Orthopaedic Sports Medicine at the University of Chicago.
During his military career Dr. Diehl served in a number of leadership roles including, Chief of the Multispecialty Clinic in Bitburg, Germany and Chief of a Mobile Field Surgical Team (MFST) with deployments to the Middle East and Africa. He was an Advanced Cardiac and Trauma Life Support instructor for United States Air Forces Europe and the Defense Medical Readiness Training Institute at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. At the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, he served as the Assistant Chief of Sports Medicine and Team Physician for the USAFA Falcons. While in the Air Force Reserve, he worked as a flight surgeon with the 920th Combat Rescue Wing in Florida and the 4th Fighter Wing in North Carolina.
In 2013 Dr. Diehl retired as a Colonel from the United States Air Force after 24 years of federal service. His wife Cynthia is a Plastic Surgeon in Raleigh and they have two children.
