Quincy Medical Group’s Biggs to be honored by alma mater as Excellence in Life Award winner

QUINCY, — Quincy Medical Group orthopedic and sports medicine physician Dr. Anthony Biggs recently was named as an Excellence in Life Award winner from his alma mater, Millikin University.

Biggs will be presented the award at the upcoming Letterman’s Banquet at Millikin.

Biggs majored in secondary physical education at Millikin with an emphasis in athletic training. He was a two-sport athlete, playing football and soccer as a freshman. He earned a varsity letter in soccer but retired from athletics during his sophomore year. While completing his undergraduate degree, Biggs continued working closely with the football and various athletic teams at Millikin as a student athletic trainer. He was the first Millikin athletic training graduate to successfully pass all three parts of the board certification examination for athletic trainers after a single attempt.

While at Millikin, Biggs was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, as well as the Black Emphasis Association and Order of Omega. He was a member of the Sports Medicine Club, for which he was a founding member, and helped co-draft the constitution for the Latin American Student Organization. Biggs served as a member of Student Senate, the Interfraternity Council, and the IFC’s Judiciary Board.

During his senior year at Millikin, Biggs became a licensed emergency medical technician and a certified CPR/BLS instructor for the American Heart Association. He was a mentor for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Macon County.

After graduating from Millikin, he attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he earned a master’s degree in therapeutic kinesiology with an emphasis in sports medicine. Biggs worked in the Division of Disability Resources and Education Services, specifically with the wheelchair sports and paralympics program. Biggs participated in the delivery of physical therapy services to the disabled student body population. He provided professional athletic training services for intramural sport at IMPE’s SportWell and for the Rossville-Alvin High School football team, where he also served as an assistant varsity football coach.

After leaving the University of Illinois, he moved to Springfield, where he worked as an EMT/ER specialist at Springfield Memorial Hospital’s Emergency Department. He moved back to Champaign a year later to begin full-time work as a licensed athletic trainer for Carle Hospital. He also volunteered as an assistant football coach for the St. Joseph-Ogden 7th/8th grade football team.

He returned to the classroom in 2000 to pursue a doctorate in osteopathic medicine. Biggs graduated from the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine of Midwestern University (2004). While in medical school, he “moonlighted” as a licensed athletic trainer for various area high schools and tutored PA, PT and OT students in gross human anatomy.

In medical school, Biggs observed osteopathic treatments performed by mentor Dr. Kurt Heinking on professional football players from the Chicago Bears and other NFL teams and rotating with the Will County Coroner, where he assisted in performing more than 50 individual forensic autopsies. Biggs completed a family medicine internship and residency at Hinsdale Hospital (2007) in Hinsdale.

Biggs began private practice in 2008 for Quincy Medical Group, where he serves as medical director for the sports medicine program and for occupational health. He is the physician for City of Quincy Services, as well as the team physician for Quincy police and fire departments. Biggs also functions as the site physician for the BASF EMS/Rescue Team at its Hannibal, Mo., plant site. He was nominated and interviewed for 40 professionals under the age of 40 program in 2010. He was recognized in January by Becker’s Spine Review as one of 10 sports medicine specialists to know in the U.S.

He was selected this past year as a member of the local ARISE (Activating Relationships in Illinois for Systemic Equity) Coalition, a federally funded program. ARISE seeks to address underlying vital community conditions and root causes of health inequities, especially in rural areas across the state.

Biggs has been invited to take part on the Juneteenth planning committee for Quincy next year. He has been a QMG physician and member of the Quincy community, along with his wife Sheila and three children, for more than 15 years.