Irving Dardik

Who is Irving Dardik?

Irving Dardik - Is a vascular surgeon who taught at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and founded the Sports Medicine Council of the US Olympic Committee. Dardik is notable as being among the first medical doctors to officially recognize the value of chiropractic in sport, when he recommended in 1979 that the United States Olympic Committee include a Doctor of Chiropractic with their Medical team at all future Olympic Games. As a result, Dr. George Goodheart was sent to the XIIIth Winter Olympic Games, in Lake Placid, NY and a Volunteer Doctor Program for DC's at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs was begun.

In 1980, following the Lake Placid Olympic Games he helped direct the first Olympic Sports Medicine Conference in Boston.

In the early 1970/s together with his brother Herbert, he pioneered the discovery that umbilical veins could be used as a source of graft tissue for bypass surgeries.