Dr. Mehmet Oz
The man who’s known as "America’s Doctor" is determined to have an impact both on the public’s health and the country’s healthcare system
CBI: Your media achievements—as a regular guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show and Oprah & Friends and the coauthor of a series of best-selling books—have made you one of the best-known physicians in the world. How did you become such an effective communicator?
Dr. Mehmet Oz: I practice in Manhattan, the media capital of the country, so, whenever some journalist needed a quick insight, or interview, or sound bite, I was there. I got comfortable talking to the media. I understand the kinds of challenges that they face, trying to craft a story, but I also appreciate that they’re not authorities on the complexities of medicine.
My wife is in the entertainment business, and, frequently, she’d say, "You present this information well. You could do something on a bigger scale. Instead of talking to people, one by one, in your office, let’s do a program, together, that will let you share with everyone what you teach your patients." So, I did a show called Second Opinion. That was how I met Oprah—she came on my show in 2003, and, subsequently, invited me to appear on her show.
CBI: In addition to television and radio, you’re also involved in a wide range of other activities. Can you provide a short synopsis? What ties all of these interests together?
MO: All my work is driven by a conviction that we can create a movement to change health in America and that, in order for a country to be wealthy, it has to be healthy. That belief informs every aspect of my interests—the role of alternative medicine, my business and philanthropic ventures, the technologies I’ve invented to change the way we do heart surgery.
I’ve worked hard to introduce integrative medicine into the hospital environment. People come to us broken, but they need more than just having their heart repaired. We need to employ a more holistic approach, helping patients to understand, accept, and meet their own responsibility for their health and well-being.
CBI: Educating the public, the man or woman in the street, seems to be the defining goal of much of what you do.
MO: Absolutely. The YOU Docs series of books that I’ve coauthored with Dr. Mike Roizen parallels what I’m trying to accomplish with my television and radio endeavors. They’re designed to teach the reader, of course, but, more than that, the books give them the knowledge they need to influence and help the people they love. And then there’s RealAge, the business that Mike and I are involved in. Mike has developed a remarkable database that allows him to calculate the "net present value" of a person’s health decisions—in plain English, how their choices about eating, exercise, sleeping, etc., affect their longevity. That’s important because, if you’re going to teach people, and get them to take charge, they need to understand the implications. RealAge allows them to quantify the results.
CBI: Educating children is clearly another one of your priorities. It’s the primary focus of HealthCorps, one of your philanthropic interests.
MO: Yes, it is. I’ve been involved with a number of national panels on childhood obesity, and I come back from them very dismayed because, while we know what we want to say, we don’t know how to say it to kids. I can’t even get my own children to listen to me, much less a bunch of youngsters in a classroom. The immediate, visceral response from any high-schooler is, "What the heck do you know?"
But if I can get a college graduate, someone who’s hip and has some attitude, who’s been taught how to teach others about health issues . . . if I can get someone who’s just a few years older than the students to sit in a schoolroom and be their big brother—then we can get the message across to them. What’s the message? Sensible eating, regular exercise—those are the two basic fundamentals.
That’s what HealthCorps is all about—giving kids good mentors to provide them with sound information. We’ve developed robust teaching plans, specific homework items, and, even, activist programs. You can check them out at www.healthcorps.org.
CBI: Do health clubs figure into the HealthCorps vision?
MO: Absolutely! Every HealthCorps volunteer receives a club membership—we don’t think of it as perk, but, rather, an obligation. If they’re willing to go—we’re willing to pay for it.
CBI: We understand that you’ve been able to forge partnerships with schools in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
MO: New York is our biggest state and a good example. We’ve received several million dollars from the New York City Council, and match all of the money that we get from the city and state. A lot of the money we raise for the program comes from private individuals. I should point out that there’s nothing at all proprietary—no copyrights or patents—about this. We take no ownership of the program. We’ll do the training for you, but, basically, what we’re really saying is, "Take what you want! Just take it and use it!"
And, by the way, it’s a very inexpensive program—about $1 per year of a child’s life.
CBI: We’ve heard you’re familiar with the program that Geoff Dyer, the head of Lifestyle Family Fitness, the Florida-based chain, has implemented to introduce teens, free of charge, to club services. What do you think about it?
MO: What a great idea! It’s sort of like City Harvest, a program here in New York that collects unused food from restaurants and distributes it to the poor. Geoff’s idea is brilliant in that it takes unused resources and reallocates them. You don’t have to build new clubs or new infrastructure—everything is already there. You have unused weight machines . . . and you have kids—just put them together. It’s perfect!
CBI: You did your undergraduate work at Harvard, but, afterward, attended a joint MD/MBA program at the University of Pennsylvania and its Wharton School of business. What prompted you to do that?
MO: The reason I wanted an MBA was because I wanted to understand healthcare finance. Even then, back in the early ’80s, I recognized that we were going to face major challenges in terms of how we were going to pay for healthcare in America. I saw bureaucrats taking ownership of the problem; and I felt strongly that someone who actually took care of patients should understand enough about the business of medicine to be able to offer some sensible insights and viable solutions. The distinction between a medical and a business degree involves vocabulary, knowledge, and cultural issues; you evaluate and think about matters quite differently. So, now, when I’m giving advice to someone who’s thinking about the healthcare challenges facing this country, I understand concepts such as net present value or the value of a dollar today vs. tomorrow—I understand the actual market forces that are involved.
CBI: Given the fact that you’d like to play some sort of role in reworking the healthcare system—what do you think needs to be done?
MO: First, everyone has to have insurance. We need to have affordable healthcare for all. I’m not going to suggest, at this point, how we should pay for it, although I do have some ideas on the subject. But everyone has to be in the system. When a person is outside of the system, they actually wind up costing the system a lot more. An uninsured patient is like a rudderless ship coming into dock—it smacks into things and wreaks havoc. The collateral damage is unacceptable and unaffordable.
Once everyone is in the system, we need a health-information system that allows us to be smarter patients and smarter doctors. Then, when I see a patient, the information about that visit will be collected and saved so that other doctors, down the road, can figure out if I did the right thing and, more importantly, determine whether it’s going to work for their patients.
CBI: What sort of synergy, if any, is there between the work you’re doing and the goals that IHRSA and its member clubs are striving toward?
MO: It’s huge! Bottom line: IHRSA is all about getting folks to recognize and accept the roles they have to play in order to enhance and ensure their own health. IHRSA isn’t referring people to open-heart surgery. IHRSA is saying that, if you want to get in good physical shape, you have to show up at the gym. And that’s true! HealthCorps, and virtually all of the other activities that I’m involved in, are communicating very much the same message.
Jon Feld,
jon@trendline-co.com
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