Walk With A Doc is a year-round program that operates in communities across America to encourage healthy physical activity for people of all ages and to improve the health and well-being of the country.
As part of Walk with a Doc, a doctor leads members of the public on a walk at a park, or other site, while sharing health information and taking questions.
Tom Bartsokas, MD., is here to introduce the Walk With A Doc program at Memorial Health.
Memorial Health's Walk With A Doc Program
From the Show: Memorial Ohio - Memorial Health Radio
Summary:
Air Date: 4/14/16
Duration: 10 Minutes
Transcription:
Melanie Cole (Host): Walk With A Doc is a year round program that operates in communities across America to encourage healthy physical activity for people of all ages and to improve the health and well-being of the country. My guest today is Dr. Tom Bartsokas. He’s a sports medicine specialist with Memorial Health System. Dr. Bartsokas, welcome to the show. Tell us about Walk With A Doc. How cool is that? What is that program?
Dr. Tom Bartsokas (Guest): Thank you for having me. Walk With A Doc was the brainchild of a cardiologist in Columbus, Ohio. His name is David Sabgir. Ten years ago in 2005, he came up with an idea of making himself more accessible to his patients. He felt a little frustrated with the fact that with the volume of patients that he was seeing, he wasn’t able to spend as much time just chewing the fat and enjoying his patients like he had done previously in his early career. He came up with this idea. Why not meet people on Saturday morning, offer a little brief health message and then, walk with them for about an hour and give people the opportunity to bend his ear, ask questions and get to know each other better. From that early genesis, this program is now in 35 states and five foreign countries.
Melanie: Wow. That’s a fantastic program. Tell us what it’s like. Do people sign up? Do they pay for this program to walk with you? What is it like for them?
Dr. Bartsokas: It’s so easy that people oftentimes have the misconception that they have to be sponsored or they have to have an approval from their primary care doctor; that they have to get some sort of screening and none of that is true. The way this program works is, you find out where we meet--and in Marietta, Ohio we have a campus just off Wayne Street where there are several outpatient facilities. We meet behind one of those buildings. I put up a sign and at 9 A.M. every Saturday we start with a 3-5 minute health message – a pep talk if you will. Then, we go for a one hour walk on this river trail that meanders along the Ohio River and the Muskingum River. It goes downtown in Marietta. It goes along a parkway. It’s a beautiful course and the river is constantly changing, so the change of seasons. That’s all there is to it. Show up and we’ll walk together.
Melanie: When you’re walking with people - being a sports medicine specialist that you are - are people asking you questions? Is there an issue with asking you questions that might be better served at an appointment?
Dr. Bartsokas: That’s never really come up as far as me getting into a sticky wicket about “Oh, I don’t think we should talk about that here.” As long as people are open and don’t mind a discussion in an open forum like the walkway, anything is fair game. We’ve talked about diet. We’ve talked about various illnesses and ailments that people have. I’ve talked about skin conditions with patients. I’ve talked about their heart histories. My background is as a generalist. I was initially trained in residency as a family physician. I’ve delivered 175 babies and I have taken out gall bladders and lasered up hemorrhoids. I don’t do that in my practice now but I have a wide background in medicine and can talk about a lot of different subjects. I feel comfortable discussing any issue that people want to bring to my attention.
Melanie: Is walking, in your opinion, Dr. Bartsokas, a sufficient exercise? People ask me this all the time. Is this enough to get the benefits that we’re looking for from exercise for blood pressure and cholesterol – these kinds of things?
Dr. Bartsokas: Absolutely. It’s been proven in internationally-based studies that if someone covers 10,000 steps in a day, the typical adult will walk 2,000 steps per mile. If we’re talking 10,000 steps per day, that’s a five mile day, but every step of that day that you go through counts towards your total of 10,000 steps. At 10,000 steps a day, we see lower blood pressures. We see smaller waist measurements. We see a lower overall risk for heart attack across all populations. It doesn’t matter what age you are, what race you are, or what sex you are. Walking is sufficient. The downfall of walking, if there is a downfall, is that it takes longer than, say, jogging or getting on an elliptical machine or participating in a Zumba class. Those are more intense and vigorous physical activities but walking is sufficient if you’ll just slow down and enjoy the ride, if you will.
Melanie: What do you tell people when they first begin with you about shoes because being that base of support? People wear walking shoes but running shoes seem to be much more technologically advanced and supportive. What do you tell people about starting that base?
Dr. Bartsokas: That’s a great line of questions because we need to know that people are wearing shoes that are comfortable. If you’re going to go out and purchase shoes for walking purposes, buy them at the end of the day after your feet have expanded a little bit and you’re at your maximum length. You want to have a shoe that is plenty long, that there’s about a thumb width between the end of your longest toe and the end of the shoe. Then, you want to make sure that the shoe just feels comfortable. There are some shoes that are the right size but they just don’t feel right. You want to test them out in the store or in the mall and make sure that there is a good fit, a good feel to that shoe. You don’t have to break it in like our parents used to have us break in our Stride Rites. That’s old school. That’s not proper. Your shoes walking out of the shoe store should feel great on your feet like you want to go work out immediately. If you have that criteria – it fits properly, feels great, and you like the style of it--then that’s probably the right shoe. I don’t want to market just one brand because there are as many brands as there are many different styles of feet. I want to make sure that people are trying on several different pairs before they make their purchase. I used to say the definition of a walking shoe is a poor man’s running shoe. I think walking and running shoes are okay but I would caution people about getting too thin of a shoe sole. In sports medicine, we’re trying to encourage people who’ve had a lot of skeletal-muscular problems to go to a thinner-, not thicker-, soled running shoe so they strengthen the muscles, the intrinsic muscles of their feet and lower legs. For a beginning walker, I would much prefer them to have a thicker-soled shoe that’s going to absorb a lot of shock and allow them to walk a lot of miles before they start thinking about going to a thinner more flexible sole.
Melanie: That’s great information. What do you say to people that say, “Well, you’re a doctor. You’re in sports medicine. You’re in great shape. I don’t think I’m going to be able to keep up with you but I would like to be a part of the Walk With A Doc program?”
Dr. Bartsokas: That gets back to my history as an exercise physiologist before I went into medicine. My very first assignment was to the Lacrosse Exercise Program in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Phil Wilson, who is the program director and he was also the head person on my research committee, he once saw that I was in this mindset that I wanted to race some of the participants in the fitness program and I was going to show them how great of shape I was. He made my assignment the slowest individual on the entire program, a guy who weighed well over 400 pounds. He said, “I want you to slow down. I want you to learn to know this guy and help him, encourage him and inspire him.” So, I did because I was afraid of him because he was my program director. But, there was a lot of learning that happened in that moment for me. If we have someone who is at a slower pace, I slow down my pace. My wife can go as fast as she wants, I don’t have to work out with her but when I’ve got someone who is just getting started and is a little apprehensive about being out there – we’ve got a woman, for example, who has some breathing issues. I’m worried about her having an asthma attack while she’s walking, so I’ll hang with her and we walk at a very comfortable pace. It’s maybe challenging for her but for myself it’s comfortable. The idea of Walk With A Doc is, you get a chance to have some time with me as your walking associate and I enjoy it.
Melanie: What a great program. I applaud all the great work that you’re doing. In just the last few minutes, here give your best advice for people who would like to join Walk With A Doc program with Memorial Health.
Dr. Bartsokas: Set aside some time. Check the weather. As long as we’re not looking at lightning and thunder, as long as we’re not dealing with a trail that’s under water and as long as the temperature is above 25 degrees, we’re going to meet and it’s going to be outdoors. The beauty of this program is if we have any of those inclement weather conditions Marietta College has the Dyson Baudo Recreation Center and they’ve opened their doors to us at no charge. We’ll meet on those inclement weather days at the Dyson Baudo Center and we’ll work out for an hour under the cover of the roof and their indoor track. It’s going to happen every Saturday at 9:00 without fail. I’ll be there waiting for you, looking forward to meeting you and, hopefully, changing your life so that you get more physically active.
Melanie: Thank you so much for being with us today, Dr. Bartsokas. It was a wonderful program. You’re listening to Memorial Health Radio. For more information you can go to MHSystem.org. That’s MHSystem.org. Expect more. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
Melanie Cole (Host): Walk With A Doc is a year round program that operates in communities across America to encourage healthy physical activity for people of all ages and to improve the health and well-being of the country. My guest today is Dr. Tom Bartsokas. He’s a sports medicine specialist with Memorial Health System. Dr. Bartsokas, welcome to the show. Tell us about Walk With A Doc. How cool is that? What is that program?
Dr. Tom Bartsokas (Guest): Thank you for having me. Walk With A Doc was the brainchild of a cardiologist in Columbus, Ohio. His name is David Sabgir. Ten years ago in 2005, he came up with an idea of making himself more accessible to his patients. He felt a little frustrated with the fact that with the volume of patients that he was seeing, he wasn’t able to spend as much time just chewing the fat and enjoying his patients like he had done previously in his early career. He came up with this idea. Why not meet people on Saturday morning, offer a little brief health message and then, walk with them for about an hour and give people the opportunity to bend his ear, ask questions and get to know each other better. From that early genesis, this program is now in 35 states and five foreign countries.
Melanie: Wow. That’s a fantastic program. Tell us what it’s like. Do people sign up? Do they pay for this program to walk with you? What is it like for them?
Dr. Bartsokas: It’s so easy that people oftentimes have the misconception that they have to be sponsored or they have to have an approval from their primary care doctor; that they have to get some sort of screening and none of that is true. The way this program works is, you find out where we meet--and in Marietta, Ohio we have a campus just off Wayne Street where there are several outpatient facilities. We meet behind one of those buildings. I put up a sign and at 9 A.M. every Saturday we start with a 3-5 minute health message – a pep talk if you will. Then, we go for a one hour walk on this river trail that meanders along the Ohio River and the Muskingum River. It goes downtown in Marietta. It goes along a parkway. It’s a beautiful course and the river is constantly changing, so the change of seasons. That’s all there is to it. Show up and we’ll walk together.
Melanie: When you’re walking with people - being a sports medicine specialist that you are - are people asking you questions? Is there an issue with asking you questions that might be better served at an appointment?
Dr. Bartsokas: That’s never really come up as far as me getting into a sticky wicket about “Oh, I don’t think we should talk about that here.” As long as people are open and don’t mind a discussion in an open forum like the walkway, anything is fair game. We’ve talked about diet. We’ve talked about various illnesses and ailments that people have. I’ve talked about skin conditions with patients. I’ve talked about their heart histories. My background is as a generalist. I was initially trained in residency as a family physician. I’ve delivered 175 babies and I have taken out gall bladders and lasered up hemorrhoids. I don’t do that in my practice now but I have a wide background in medicine and can talk about a lot of different subjects. I feel comfortable discussing any issue that people want to bring to my attention.
Melanie: Is walking, in your opinion, Dr. Bartsokas, a sufficient exercise? People ask me this all the time. Is this enough to get the benefits that we’re looking for from exercise for blood pressure and cholesterol – these kinds of things?
Dr. Bartsokas: Absolutely. It’s been proven in internationally-based studies that if someone covers 10,000 steps in a day, the typical adult will walk 2,000 steps per mile. If we’re talking 10,000 steps per day, that’s a five mile day, but every step of that day that you go through counts towards your total of 10,000 steps. At 10,000 steps a day, we see lower blood pressures. We see smaller waist measurements. We see a lower overall risk for heart attack across all populations. It doesn’t matter what age you are, what race you are, or what sex you are. Walking is sufficient. The downfall of walking, if there is a downfall, is that it takes longer than, say, jogging or getting on an elliptical machine or participating in a Zumba class. Those are more intense and vigorous physical activities but walking is sufficient if you’ll just slow down and enjoy the ride, if you will.
Melanie: What do you tell people when they first begin with you about shoes because being that base of support? People wear walking shoes but running shoes seem to be much more technologically advanced and supportive. What do you tell people about starting that base?
Dr. Bartsokas: That’s a great line of questions because we need to know that people are wearing shoes that are comfortable. If you’re going to go out and purchase shoes for walking purposes, buy them at the end of the day after your feet have expanded a little bit and you’re at your maximum length. You want to have a shoe that is plenty long, that there’s about a thumb width between the end of your longest toe and the end of the shoe. Then, you want to make sure that the shoe just feels comfortable. There are some shoes that are the right size but they just don’t feel right. You want to test them out in the store or in the mall and make sure that there is a good fit, a good feel to that shoe. You don’t have to break it in like our parents used to have us break in our Stride Rites. That’s old school. That’s not proper. Your shoes walking out of the shoe store should feel great on your feet like you want to go work out immediately. If you have that criteria – it fits properly, feels great, and you like the style of it--then that’s probably the right shoe. I don’t want to market just one brand because there are as many brands as there are many different styles of feet. I want to make sure that people are trying on several different pairs before they make their purchase. I used to say the definition of a walking shoe is a poor man’s running shoe. I think walking and running shoes are okay but I would caution people about getting too thin of a shoe sole. In sports medicine, we’re trying to encourage people who’ve had a lot of skeletal-muscular problems to go to a thinner-, not thicker-, soled running shoe so they strengthen the muscles, the intrinsic muscles of their feet and lower legs. For a beginning walker, I would much prefer them to have a thicker-soled shoe that’s going to absorb a lot of shock and allow them to walk a lot of miles before they start thinking about going to a thinner more flexible sole.
Melanie: That’s great information. What do you say to people that say, “Well, you’re a doctor. You’re in sports medicine. You’re in great shape. I don’t think I’m going to be able to keep up with you but I would like to be a part of the Walk With A Doc program?”
Dr. Bartsokas: That gets back to my history as an exercise physiologist before I went into medicine. My very first assignment was to the Lacrosse Exercise Program in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Phil Wilson, who is the program director and he was also the head person on my research committee, he once saw that I was in this mindset that I wanted to race some of the participants in the fitness program and I was going to show them how great of shape I was. He made my assignment the slowest individual on the entire program, a guy who weighed well over 400 pounds. He said, “I want you to slow down. I want you to learn to know this guy and help him, encourage him and inspire him.” So, I did because I was afraid of him because he was my program director. But, there was a lot of learning that happened in that moment for me. If we have someone who is at a slower pace, I slow down my pace. My wife can go as fast as she wants, I don’t have to work out with her but when I’ve got someone who is just getting started and is a little apprehensive about being out there – we’ve got a woman, for example, who has some breathing issues. I’m worried about her having an asthma attack while she’s walking, so I’ll hang with her and we walk at a very comfortable pace. It’s maybe challenging for her but for myself it’s comfortable. The idea of Walk With A Doc is, you get a chance to have some time with me as your walking associate and I enjoy it.
Melanie: What a great program. I applaud all the great work that you’re doing. In just the last few minutes, here give your best advice for people who would like to join Walk With A Doc program with Memorial Health.
Dr. Bartsokas: Set aside some time. Check the weather. As long as we’re not looking at lightning and thunder, as long as we’re not dealing with a trail that’s under water and as long as the temperature is above 25 degrees, we’re going to meet and it’s going to be outdoors. The beauty of this program is if we have any of those inclement weather conditions Marietta College has the Dyson Baudo Recreation Center and they’ve opened their doors to us at no charge. We’ll meet on those inclement weather days at the Dyson Baudo Center and we’ll work out for an hour under the cover of the roof and their indoor track. It’s going to happen every Saturday at 9:00 without fail. I’ll be there waiting for you, looking forward to meeting you and, hopefully, changing your life so that you get more physically active.
Melanie: Thank you so much for being with us today, Dr. Bartsokas. It was a wonderful program. You’re listening to Memorial Health Radio. For more information you can go to MHSystem.org. That’s MHSystem.org. Expect more. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
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