Dr. Anthony Biggs Honored with Award from His Alma Mater

October 24, 2023

Quin­cy Med­ical Group Ortho­pe­dic & Sports Med­i­cine Physi­cian Dr. Antho­ny Big­gs has name as the next 2023 Excel­lence in Life Award Win­ner from his alma mater, Mil­likin Uni­ver­si­ty. The fol­low­ing arti­cle from Mil­likin Uni­ver­si­ty high­lights his accom­plish­ments dur­ing his time at the uni­ver­si­ty and after.

Dr. Big­gs (for­mal­ly Antho­ny Tem­ple­ton) majored in sec­ondary phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion at Mil­likin with an empha­sis in ath­let­ic train­ing. He was a two-sport ath­lete simul­ta­ne­ous­ly 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, Dr. Big­gs con­tin­ued work­ing close­ly with foot­ball and the 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, Dr. Big­gs was a mem­ber of the pres­ti­gious Alpha Phi Alpha Fra­ter­ni­ty Incor­po­rat­ed, as well as the Black Empha­sis Asso­ci­a­tion and Order of Omega. He was also 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. Antho­ny served as a mem­ber of Stu­dent Sen­ate, the Inter­fra­ter­ni­ty Coun­cil and IFC’s Judi­cia­ry Board. Dur­ing his senior year at Mil­likin, Dr. Big­gs became a Licensed Emer­gency Med­ical Tech­ni­cian and a Cer­ti­fied CPR/BLS instruc­tor for the Amer­i­can Heart Asso­ci­a­tion. He was also a men­tor for Big Brother’s/Big Sister’s of Macon County.

After grad­u­at­ing from Mil­likin, he attend­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois at Urbana-Cham­paign. He earned a Master’s Degree in Ther­a­peu­tic Kine­si­ol­o­gy with an empha­sis in Sports Med­i­cine. Dr. Big­gs worked in the Divi­sion of Dis­abil­i­ty Resources and Edu­ca­tion Ser­vices, specif­i­cal­ly with the Wheel Chair Sports and Par­a­lympics pro­gram. Dr. Big­gs also par­tic­i­pat­ed in the deliv­ery of phys­i­cal ther­a­py ser­vices to the dis­abled stu­dent body pop­u­la­tion. He pro­vid­ed pro­fes­sion­al ath­let­ic train­ing ser­vices for Inter­mur­al 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, Illi­nois, where he worked as an EMT/ER Spe­cial­ist at Spring­field Memo­r­i­al Hospital’s Emer­gency Depart­ment. A year lat­er, he moved back to Cham­paign, IL, where he began full-time work as a licensed Ath­let­ic Train­er for Car­le Hos­pi­tal. Dur­ing this time, he vol­un­teered as an assis­tant foot­ball coach for the St. Joseph-Ogden youth foot­ball 7th-8h grade team.

In 2000, he final­ly mar­ried his high school sweet­heart, Sheila (Jus­tice) Big­gs, (1996) and returned to the class­room to pur­sue a doc­tor­ate in osteo­path­ic med­i­cine. In 2002, Dr. Big­gs legal­ly changed his last name from Tem­ple­ton back to Big­gs in hon­or of his mater­nal grand­fa­ther. Dr. 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. High­lights of med­ical school includ­ed: observ­ing 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, the late Dr. Bryan Mitchell foren­sic pathol­o­gist, where he assist­ed in per­form­ing over 50 indi­vid­ual foren­sic autop­sies. Dr. Big­gs com­plet­ed a fam­i­ly med­i­cine intern­ship and res­i­den­cy at Hins­dale Hos­pi­tal (2007) in Hins­dale, IL.

In 2008, Dr. Big­gs began pri­vate prac­tice for Quin­cy Med­ical Group, in Quin­cy, IL, where he cur­rent­ly serves as Med­ical Direc­tor for the Sports Med­i­cine pro­gram and for Occu­pa­tion­al Health. He is cur­rent­ly the physi­cian for City of Quin­cy Ser­vices, as well as the team physi­cian for Quin­cy Police and Fire depart­ments. Dr. Big­gs also func­tions as the site physi­cian for the BASF EMS/​Rescue Team Han­ni­bal, MO, plant site. He was nom­i­nat­ed and inter­viewed for 40 pro­fes­sion­als under the age of 40 pro­gram in 2010, and has been recent­ly rec­og­nized by Becker’s Spine Review as 10 Sports Med­i­cine Spe­cial­ists to know in the US in Jan­u­ary 2023. This past year he was select­ed as a mem­ber of the local ARISE Coali­tion which is a fed­er­al­ly fund­ed pro­gram that stands for Acti­vat­ing Rela­tion­ships in Illi­nois for Sys­temic Equi­ty. ARISE seeks to address under­ly­ing vital com­mu­ni­ty con­di­tions and root caus­es of health inequities, espe­cial­ly in rur­al areas across the state. Addi­tion­al­ly, Dr. Big­gs has been invit­ed to take part on the June­teenth plan­ning com­mit­tee for Quin­cy next year as well. Antic­i­pat­ing only a 4 – 5 year stay in Quin­cy, Dr. Big­gs has in fact been a QMG physi­cian and a proud mem­ber of the Quin­cy com­mu­ni­ty along with his wife Sheila and three chil­dren Brook­lynn, 18; Iysis,14; and Lawrence, 11 for over 15 years.

Dr. Big­gs will be pre­sent­ed the award­ed at the upcom­ing Letterman’s Ban­quet at Mil­likin University.

Con­grat­u­la­tions Dr. Biggs!