Dr. Scott Lynch

Dr. Scott Lynch has been an orthopedic surgeon since 1998, attaining his full professor ranking in 2016, at Penn State Health M.S. Hershey Medical Center, where he has also served as the director of sports medicine since 2004. In addition, since 2008 he has been the practice site medical director of the Adult Bone and Joint Institute at Hershey (which sees about 100,000 patient visits a year), and previously served as the Penn State orthopedic consultant for football from 2013-2019 and the director of athletic medicine for Penn State Athletics from 2014-2019. Twice given the Orthopedic Resident Outstanding Teacher award, he has also authored many scientific journal publications, chapters, and a recently published fifth edition of a sports medicine textbook, Sports Injuries: Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation with Swedish colleagues Lars Peterson and Per Renström. He is also a member of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) Sports Medicine Advisory Committee.

In May of 2024, a jury awarded Dr. Lynch five million dollars in punitive damages for egregious behavior by his employer, where he continues to be employed, for his removal from the orthopedic consultant and director of athletic medicine positions at Penn State University because of his refusal to give in to attempts by coaches and administrators to change medical decisions. 

Scott is a three-time All American as an NCAA National champion wrestler at 134 pounds in 1984 after finishing 4th in 1983 and 6th in 1982, both at 126 pounds while wrestling for Penn State University. He won a high school state wrestling championship (PIAA) at 119 pounds in 1979, and was a two-time state runner-up (1977, 1978). 

Scott assists in coverage of the AHL Hershey Bears team, and has provided medical coverage for District 3 and PIAA championships in cross country, football, basketball, wrestling, and track and field since 2005. He served as a physician in the U.S. Army Reserves for about 17 years, attaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and was twice called up for active duty.

A 1979 graduate of Mifflinburg (PA) High School, Scott earned a B.S. from Penn State in Electrical Engineering in 1984, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Penn State in 1990 (spent 1984-86 as a graduate assistant wrestling coach), and an M.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1991. In between, he served as a graduate assistant wrestling coach at the University of Virginia from 1986-87 while taking biology and organic chemistry and working in rehabilitative engineering. He also served as a graduate assistant wrestling coach at the University of Pittsburgh while attending medical school. 

After a five-year orthopedic residency at the University of Vermont (1991-1996), he completed a sports medicine fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic (1996-1997), then a second sports medicine fellowship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden (1997-1998).

Scott has been married for 40 years to Deborah Everitt Lynch, a freelance writer who is a former newspaper editor and college instructor. They have two children, Patrick who is an architect in New York City, and Anna who works in the gene therapy lab at the University of Pennsylvania. Scott’s hobbies include playing guitar and going to concerts, bicycling, and snowboarding.