Rx: Hip Hop!

Self proclaimed doctor and dance instructor, Dr. Winters, has taken it upon himself to battle juvenile diabetes from one of its causes: “Part of weight management is not focusing on weight, because it’s not the best way to counsel patients. Our goals are not to promote weight loss, but to promote healthier lifestyles.” He focuses on a cause of obesity, inactivity, and not obesity itself in order to help the children in his practice (Foston, 2018). By doing so, he emphasizes the whole patient. He takes into account the social, socioeconomic, and health interdependent relationships that play into childhood obesity and diabetes. 

As a child who lived with obesity and a diabetes diagnosis, Dr. Winters took it upon himself to make lifestyle changes to beat his diabetes (Foston, 2018). He also found the inspiration as an osteopathic physician to help children do the same. He teaches and prescribes hip hop dance classes to his patients in order to inspire long lasting healthy changes. By doing so he became more relatable as a doctor, which improved the outcomes of his patients. After reading this story, I noticed how it is not only important for a doctor to be able to relate to their patient, but it is equally as important for the patient to be able to relate to their doctor.

Dr. Winters also found it important to "lead by example" (Boston, 2018). He gave his community in Ohio a hand up not a hand out. One of his former students actually took on the leadership role at 16 years old to teach the class when Dr. Winters moved to New Jersey. 

It is pretty cool to acknowledge doctors making lasting differences in their communities. We too can use our experiences to establish our empathetic style of practice and philosophy in medicine. I think that this is very important because in order to treat a patient as a whole unit, doctors too need to see themselves as whole. Yay osteopathy! 


References

Foston, N. (2018, January 4). A hip-hop doc who rocks, as doctor and dance instructor. Retrieved from https://thedo.osteopathic.org/2018/01/hip-hop-doc-rocks-doctor-dance-instructor/.

Doctors That DO - Doctors That DO: Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://doctorsthatdo.org/doctors-that-do.

The DO Difference - Doctors That DO: Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://doctorsthatdo.org/difference.