After a glorious career as a football player, first with Atromitos but mainly with AEK FC, Pantelis Nikolaou devoted himself to medicine and became one of the most distinguished orthopedists in Greece, specialising in sports injuries.
He studied in parallel to his professional career in football and graduated from the Medical School in Bari, Italy. He then transferred to and graduated from the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 1975.
He was the official doctor of the Greek National Teams between 1982, when he quit as a player, and 1994. He was AEK FC's doctor since 1987 to date and a member of the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Football Federation (E.P.O.) and the President of the Health Committee of the Greek Football Federation (1994-1995). He completed his residency at the Athens University Orthopaedic Clinic in February 1981 and in 1985 he earned his PhD from said University.
Following his residency, he moved to the United States for a three-year post-doc training in Sports Medicine, at the North Carolina Orthopaedic Clinic, Duke University (1983-86). He was particularly engaged in research.  In fact, his research work dates back to 1979 and reached its peak when he won the O'Donoghue award from the American Orthopeadic Society of Sports Medicine for his innovative work in anterior cruciate ligament transplantation.  In 1997, after many years of research in the Physiology of Muscular Injuries, he received the “Kappa Delta” award, the highest award given by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
He is a member of many Greek {ΕΕΧΟΤ, ΕΑΕ) and foreign medical societies (ΑΑΟS, ΕSSΚΑ, ΙSACΟS, ΙCRS, Piedmont Orthopedic Society, ΕFΟSΤ, ΑCL, Study Group, ΟRS) and the author of numerous publications in both Greek and international medical journals.
Since 1987, he has been working at the Athens Medical Center, where he established together with his associates an Orthopaedic and Sports Injury Clinic, performing over 600 surgeries each year.