Mountain Hawk Heroes: TFXC Alum Shannon Alejandro

Every Wednesday, Lehigh Athletics, Lehigh Valley Health Network and Coordinated Health is proud to recognize a Mountain Hawk Hero - someone associated with Lehigh Athletics who is making a difference in the medical field. We continue today with track and field/cross country alum Shannon Alejandro '09.

Previous Mountain Hawk Heroes
November 11: Simon Voorhees (Track and Field/Cross Country Alum)
November 4: Michael Metzger (Men's Lacrosse Alum)
October 28: Jen (Lance) Sikorski (Rowing Alum)
October 21: Shannon Wright (Track and Field/Cross Country Alum)
October 14: Darren Saks (Men's Soccer Alum)
October 7: Jenny Warner Southard (Track and Field Alum)
September 30: Taylor Wise (Swimming and Diving Alum)
September 23: Matt Christman (Track and Field Alum)
September 16: Steph Fratoni (Field Hockey Alum)
September 9: Mike Price (Swimming and Diving Alum)
September 2: Yasmin Deliz (Track and Field Alum)
August 26: Evan Guerrero (Men's Lacrosse Alum)
August 19: Ross Biggs (Baseball Alum)
August 12: Cynthia Izuno Macri (Soccer Alum)
August 5: Susan Westman (Rowing Student-Athlete)
July 29: Megan Hetzel (Track and Field/Cross Country Alum)
July 22: Lexi Martins (Women's Basketball Alum)
July 15: Nii Daako-Darko (Track and Field/Cross Country Alum)
July 8: Ali Linsk Butash (Softball Alum)
July 1: Kimberly Scotto-Wetzel & Jonathan Wetzel (Track and Field/Cross Country Alums)
June 24: Robert Bonow (Men's Basketball Alum)
June 17: Morgan Decker (Softball Alum)
June 10: Jim Guzzo (Former Quarterback)
June 3: Amina Affini (Women's Basketball Alum)
May 27: Natalie Krane (Women's Soccer Alum)
May 20: Tricia Klein (Women's Golf Assistant Coach)

By: Justin Lafleur, Lehigh Sports Communications

Lehigh was an important step in former track and field student-athlete Shannon Alejandro's road to becoming a doctor, specifically an orthopedic surgeon.

"Initially, I was looking at schools where I could run and make an impact on the team, but at the same time, I wanted a very good academic school because I knew I wanted to attend medical school," she said. "I wanted a name that would stick in people's minds to show I went to a school that was academically rigorous and wasn't just an athlete."

Lehigh was certainly that place, a university with not only strong athletics, but also a reputation which resonates in the professional world.

"Honestly, through every interview I've ever been on, I've been asked about Lehigh because people know it's a challenging school," said Alejandro. "I believe going to a school with such a good reputation like Lehigh definitely gives you a leg up as an applicant.

"People recognize that name."

Lehigh's name is recognizable because of the student and student-athlete experience. For her whole life, Alejandro has made the most of every opportunity to reach where she is today – as an attending physician at a private practice in Asheville, North Carolina.
Shannon Alejandro

"I specialize in foot and ankle surgery," she said. "As an orthopedic surgeon, you train to operate on all the bones of the body, but then you spend a year specializing. I just finished that in Dallas, Texas this past July. I operate on a lot of ankle fractures and Lis Frank fracture dislocations, which is often seen in sports. At the same time, I can do reconstructions on patients who have flat feet, bunions and need joint replacements for ankles."

Alejandro's interest in medicine started at a very young age.

"I always wanted to be a doctor," she said. "No one in my family is in health care, but I enjoy science, and also really enjoy being around and helping people.

"If I combined the two (science and developing interpersonal relationships), health care was the way to go."

Alejandro graduated Lehigh in 2009 as a biology major and went on to attend Wake Forest School of Medicine.

"Getting into medical school is not easy," she said. "I remember my senior year, I was having some frustrations because I wasn't getting the interviews I wanted. Coach Deb (Utesch) looked at me and said Shannon, it will be fine. There is more than one path to get where you want to go.

"Until that moment, I was thinking very linearly."

Alejandro admits the conversation with Utesch "broadened her horizons" to other roads to medical school.

"It was really nice to have the mentorship of a coach guiding me through," she said.

Utesch knew Alejandro was set up for success.

"Shannon is highly competitive," said Utesch. "She loved the challenge that her top Patriot League competitors presented and boy, was she focused on how she could win. I remember Coach Matt and I spending extra training sessions fine tuning Shannon's biomechanics, especially during her finishing kick. Shannon was incredibly coachable, paid attention to detail and was willing to put in extra effort where true champions are made."

What was the result?
Shannon Alejandro

"Shannon was the Patriot League Champion in the 1500m and qualified for the NCAA East Regional in Tallahassee Florida," said Utesch.

"It seems all these characteristics that were so evident in Shannon on the track and cross country courses are similar attributes that lead to success in the medical field."

After Wake Forest, Alejandro returned to Pennsylvania for residency at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville. Her fellowship was at Baylor Scott & White Health in Dallas, Texas.

Medicine has been an interest of Alejandro since she was nine years old, but her interest in orthopedic surgery blossomed in medical school.

"I was open to the idea of being a surgeon all along," she said. "Being a runner, all athletes are really in tune with their bodies. I've had a lot of injuries, so you go through the treatments with various doctors. The pathophysiology of the muscular skeletal system interested me."

Alejandro's "aha" moment came during a rotation her third year of med school.

"My last rotation – when you choose what you want to do – I did orthopedics and it 'stuck' with me," she said. "I went into my first surgery (a total knee replacement), and the biomechanics of it fascinated me, which probably comes some from Lehigh and doing engineering sciences. I enjoy how you can fix the mechanics of human beings and totally change their lives."

Alejandro has seen all types of ways orthopedic surgeons can literally change lives.

"Patients may have had trouble maintaining a job because they couldn't stand due to knee or foot and ankle pain, but after an orthopedic intervention, they can get a job or play with their grandchildren with minimal pain," Alejandro continued. "As soon as I rotated on orthopedics and saw the patient-doctor interactions, I knew that's what I wanted to do."

Now all finished with schooling, residency and fellowship, Alejandro is on her own.

And she is up to the challenge.
Shannon Alejandro

"For six years, you train with an attending physician and if you're in a good training program, they let you do most of the case, but there's always someone there holding your hand in a way," said Alejandro. "The attending physicians are there to help you through it. The nice thing about doing all the training is you just learn to operate. Maybe you haven't done a million of this one procedure, but because you put in the training – much like putting in the training for a race – you have the biomechanics, muscle memory and critical thinking skills available to think through different problems."

Take one example.

As Alejandro said, "A bone is not reducing quite right. What other tools can I use to reduce that bone? What do I have in my toolbox – mentally and physically?

"Running is the same way," Alejandro continued. "You put in all that preparation and maybe you haven't raced that course in cross country, or against that competitor, but you've put in so much work that your mind and body know what to do. I definitely believe being a student-athlete gives you that advantage of knowing how muscle memory and critical thinking can help you through a problem, even one you haven't faced before."

Alejandro recounts an interest in building things when she was growing up.

"I always enjoyed working with my hands," she said. "What I do now is similar to carpentry; I work to reconstruct a limb as if you're building something. Just seeing that work is pretty gratifying as a surgeon. Surgery is difficult because it can be unpredictable and that lifestyle can be difficult to navigate.

"There's always the stigma of a surgeon that you're not going to have a life outside of medicine."

Alejandro's position demands a lot of time, but she loves it and has found a way to balance everything and tackle every challenge thrown her way, due in large part to her Lehigh student-athlete experience.

"At Lehigh, you have to learn how to balance your academics and athletic careers, as well as your social life," she said. "Medicine is the same way. You can't just be good technically with your hands, but you have to be a good doctor too. You have to think about the patient as a whole. You have to be able to communicate with the patient what you think their issue is and how you can resolve it, and help them understand that back and forth."

Then, there's the aspect of unpredictability, which is certainly evident in medicine (and sports).

"Things may not go the way you expect, the same way a race may not go the way you expect," said Alejandro. "Did you learn something from it? I believe being a student-athletes makes you very resilient and a more well-rounded human being."

The challenge of 2020, and arguably the greatest medical challenge in more than a century, has been the COVID-19 pandemic.

It has affected Alejandro, who was finishing her fellowship in Dallas when the epidemic first started in the U.S.
Shannon Alejandro

"Like for everybody, it was scary," she said. "My training got shut down for about six weeks, so we were only doing traumas and emergent infections. There aren't a ton of cases in orthopedics that are emergencies, but at the same time, you can't let somebody sit around for six weeks with a broken ankle.

"Once we did get back to work, it was interesting with personal protective equipment," Alejandro continued. "We had one N95 mask for four weeks. Prior to COVID-19, I never had to wear the same mask more than once."

By the time Alejandro began working in her own elective practice in North Carolina, things had opened back up a bit.

"I would say the pandemic has made us more aware how in the blink of an eye, things can really change," she said. "But I was by no means a front line worker."

Alejandro was taking risks, however, by being in a medical setting with patients – especially at first – who she didn't know if they had COVID-19. In many instances, patients she operated on were tested for the virus, but not always.

"Because there isn't always enough tests, there have been several places where I've operated during the heart of the pandemic (and now) that don't test the patients," said Alejandro. "There are plenty of times we don't know if the patient has coronavirus or not. It's a little scary, but you have to keep going with your job, especially if people need help.

"In a way, I see this as what we signed up for in health care," she continued. "We took the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm and we signed up to help people no matter the situation."

No matter the situation, Alejandro is there to help. She valued relationships as a collegiate captain, and even more so today.

"I have that drive to get up and know you're going to see patients who need your help," she said. "You see patients where you know in your mind a treatment that will get them back to their everyday lives. Building those relationships with patients who become like friends and family is amazing. You might have a patient who 'just' has plantar fasciitis, but it's not just plantar fasciitis to them because maybe they can't go on their five-mile walk, or maybe they can't play with their grandchildren.

"When you see them back six weeks later and they're like doc, I'm so much better, I can't believe it… that's a pretty good high to know you can help people with the knowledge you've spent so much time training for."

That training included Lehigh University, an important step in Alejandro's road to becoming a medical hero.

Lehigh University Athletics

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Completed Event: Women's Track and Field at Virginia Challenge on April 18, 2025 ,

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Mountain Hawk Heroes: TFXC Alum Shannon Alejandro

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