Hailing from Columbus Ohio, Christopher Nicholson, MD, grew up surrounded by sports. That backdrop of athletics dovetailed nicely with his growing interest in medicine while he was in high school, as a family friend in sports medicine invited the young Nicholson to shadow him in the OR.

“Seeing how he got to interact with the athletes, and my fascination with sports at the time, initiated my interest,” he said. 

He would stay in Columbus for his medical education, getting his degree from The Ohio State University School of Medicine, then interning and serving as resident at The Ohio State University Medical Center. Practicing orthopedic medicine on a campus of thousands of students and a famously robust athletic program, “You get to treat a little bit of everything – sports injuries, arthritis, deformities – all in one place.”

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His career eventually took him to Charlotte, NC, working with Dr. Bob Anderson in treating some of the biggest names in the NFL when he got the call from Optim Orthopedics. “My wife said we should give Savannah a try, and 15 years later here we are.” And for the past 15 years, he’s developed a high-profile reputation as one of the region’s preeminent foot and ankle specialists.

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Dr. Nicholson and his wife have five children who share their father’s athletic enthusiasm, with one son on a nationally ranked shooting team and a daughter on travel basketball and volleyball teams. When he is not shuttling kids back and forth to tournaments, you can find him enjoying the outdoors of his adopted hometown, jogging and golfing.