Doctors Drive Cross-Country To Drive Home A Point: Men Need To Make Their Health A Priority

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MEDIA CONTACT

Katie Dagenais, M.A.
Orlando Health
Media Relations and Public Affairs Manager
321.843.1343
[email protected]

Clermont, Florida. (Monday, June 08, 2015) — A new national survey about men and their cars is revealing eye-opening information about men and their health. The survey, commissioned by Orlando Health, found that more than 80 percent of men could remember the make and model of their first car, but only about half could remember the last time they went to the doctor for a check-up.

In effort to change that, two of the country’s top men’s health surgeons are embarking on a cross-country road trip in the hopes of getting more men to the doctor more often.

“Men need to take better care of themselves, period,” said Dr. Sijo Parekattil, co-founder of the the Drive for Men’s Health and co-director of the PUR (Personalized Urology & Robotics) Clinic at South Lake Hospital, in affiliation with Orlando Health. “It’s a message we want to get to as many men as possible, and we’re willing to drive cross country to do it.”

On June 11, Parekattil and Dr. Jamin Brahmbhatt, the other co-founder of the Drive for Men’s Health and co-director of the PUR Clinic, will climb into an all-electric Tesla Model S and embark on a journey that will cover 6,008 miles, will include more than 60 stops and will feature hundreds of speakers, both at events along the way and online during the drive. The trip will go from Florida to New York, then west to Los Angeles, where the team will arrive on June 20.

“We’re engaging the audience every moment we’re on the road,” said Brahmbhatt. “We have a huge social media campaign, we’ll have videos and live webcasts from the car every single day and we will feature about 250 presentations from physicians across the country, all focused on men’s health issues,” he said. “You name it, we’ll talk about it. In fact, we want men to text us, tweet us, email us, call us - that’s what this is all about. We really want to start a conversation about men’s health, not just on this trip, but year-round.”

Although this is the second annual Drive for Men’s Health, it is the first time the duo will reach the west coast in an effort to reach millions of men with their urgent message.

The Drive for Men’s Health started as an off-the-wall idea in the spring of 2014. “On a daily basis, we were seeing men come into our clinic who simply waited too long to get medical attention,” said Brahmbhatt. “Sometimes it was heartbreaking. By the time they came in to get checked out, we were diagnosing them with aggressive cancers or serious diseases. We wanted to change that, whatever it took.”

Within just six weeks, the Drive for Men’s Health went from an idea to an actual event. “We know men love cars and we thought rolling up in a sleek, high-tech, state-of-the-art Tesla would be a great way to engage them in conversation,” said Parekattil.

Drive for Men’s Health will make stops at many of the top cities in the country, including Jacksonville, Atlanta, Rocky Mount, NC, Winston-Salem, NC, Gaffney, SC, New York City, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and Phoenix. The trip will conclude on June 20, in Los Angeles.

“Last year we had a following, a group of people that would actually watch us and thought it was pretty entertaining,” said Parekattil. “In all we reached out to about 350,000 men through social media and hopefully they got something educational out of the whole event.”

This year they expect more. “We’d like to make this global and get all guys to take more control of their health and be more proactive about seeing their doctors,” said Brahmbhatt. “We’d like to reach millions of men with this message, but even if we change one individual’s life through this drive, we will have accomplished what we set out to do.”

To follow the doctors on their journey, support their efforts or to learn more about men’s health issues, log on to driveformenshealth.com.

The new survey was conducted with approximately one thousand men across the U.S. and was commissioned and released by Orlando Health, a hospital system affiliated with the PUR Clinic. It was conducted by Harris Interactive.

About South Lake Hospital:
South Lake Hospital, in affiliation with Orlando Health, is a non-profit, 170-bed hospital in Clermont, Fla. The hospital’s 180-acre health, education and wellness campus includes the inpatient hospital, The PUR Clinic — Personalized Urology Robotics, Centre for Women’s Health, SkyTop View Rehabilitation Center, LiveWell Fitness Center, National Training Center, South Lake Endoscopy Center, South Lake Surgery Center, South Lake Home Health and South Lake Wound Care Center. South Lake Hospital has been serving the healthcare needs of the south Lake County community since 1947 and employs 1,350 team members and has over 250 physicians on its medical staff. For more information please visit SouthLakeHospital.com.