Why is this important?

This short, 4 page interview is important because it includes some great wisdom from the physician’s perspective about how to help patients (aka “employees”) get on the wellness bus. It includes practical tips for anyone advising anybody about succeeding on their wellness journey. Fast, pithy and practical read.

The medical literature is pretty clear that our own doctor(s) have a lot of influence on our health decisions as patients.  We hope that this influence will be supportive of the behaviors that our wellness programs advocate, but sometimes this is not the case.  A physician may downplay the feasibility of making a major lifestyle health behavior change, suggest a prescription drug, undermining the effectiveness of our wellness program’s efforts with that individual.

Therefore, we need to have some way of helping our employee’s doctor(s) to be supportive of the lifestyle-oriented health improvements we advocate in employee wellness. This article is intended to help with this problem as well as help physicians be more effective in advising patients on wellness issues.

What can you do with this resource?

Here’s what you could do with this article:

• Send this to all your Wellness Champions.
• Share it with all Wellness staff and volunteers.
• Send it to your wellness coaches, nurses and physicians.
• Send it to your HR manager and/or benefits manager
• Write it up as a short piece for all employees about what to expect from a “good doctor” regarding their support for wellness.
• Distribute the article to the physicians that serve your work force with an appeal to be supportive of healthy lifestyle practices when appropriate.

What was the most important thing I learned from this resource?

The most important thing I learned from this article is…. Our wellness journey should always begin with the need for being kinder to ourselves. This is key to our ability to open up a dialogue with employee on wellness.

In summary, this is an excellent, short interview piece with a very wise physician that excels in helping her patients get on and stay on the wellness bus.