Richard Valenzuela, M.D. is a fellowship-trained Orthopedic Surgeon who specializes in Sports Medicine. Dr. Valenzuela’s practice focuses on the treatment of shoulder, elbow, knee, ankle injuries resulting from trauma, sport related injuries, and degenerative conditions. Dr. Valenzuela is committed to outstanding clinical care and strives to provide the most advanced operative and non-operative treatment of injury related orthopedic and sports medicine conditions with an emphasis on elimination of pain, joint preservation, and restoration of function to safely allow patients to return to daily activities as soon as possible.

Dr. Valenzuela tries to maximize non-surgical options and utilizes progressive surgical techniques when surgery is the only option. He specializes in outpatient arthroscopic procedures of the shoulder and knee; including but not limited to arthroscopic rotator cuff repairs, labral reconstructions following shoulder dislocations, SLAP tears, knee ligament injuries including ACL, PCL tears and knee dislocations, multi-ligament knee injuries, and knee cartilage procedures as well as meniscus repair procedures. He also specializes in the management of knee patella-femoral injuries.

Dr. Valenzuela earned his medical degree in Guadalajara, Mexico where he Graduated in the top 10% of his class. He completed a Research Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN where he published over 20 scientific articles related to cartilage reconstruction, osteoarthritis and bone tumors. Dr. Valenzuela then completed an Orthopedic Surgery Residency at the University of Puerto Rico where he also earned a Post-Doctoral Master of Science Degree in Clinical Research. He relocated to Michigan to complete his Orthopedic Surgery Sports fellowship at the Detroit Medical Center where he further honed his skills in all aspects of the musculoskeletal examination, joint-preserving surgery, ligament reconstruction, lower-limb alignment surgery and arthroscopic surgery procedures.