DOC News January 1, 2006
Volume 3 Number 1 p. 4
© 2006 American Diabetes Association
Walk the Talk
Ralph L. La Forge, MS, Physiologist
Duke University Medical Center and U.S. Indian Health Service Durham,
N.C.
Ihave not witnessed a confidence deficit among physicians and other health
care workers (CDEs, RNs, midlevels, pharmacists, dietitians) when counseling
on physical activity ("Clinicians Lack Confidence in Prescribing
Exercise," November 2005) when they themselves adhere to a routine of
daily physical activity. I believe the logic to getting patients to value
regular meaningful physical activity is subordinate to the providers' valuing
regular exercise for themselves, i.e., their own current physical activity
pattern.
The most disingenuous information imparted to patients, I believe, is that
which the providers do not apply to themselves. There is a remarkable
difference in counseling spirit and ability to articulate realistic exercise
activity parameters when one has personally executed similar strategies. Let's
first focus on provider fitness, and then perhaps we can expect an improvement
in patient counseling skill and compliance.
Footnotes
Editor's Note: Mr. La Forge makes some good points. Why should patients
take us seriously if we can't eat a healthy diet, exercise on a routine basis,
and stop smoking ourselves? Perhaps we should start working with patients by
first looking into our mirrors every morning.—IBH
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