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Experiment Aims to Get Real Men to Go to the Doctor December 12, 2000 - On the seacoast of New England, where men are men and health concerns are often left to the women, one researcher is trying to cure what he sees as an epidemic in men's health. Namely, that men ignore their aches and pains, mental and physical, until it is too late. For a study he began in 1998, Chuck Rhoades interviewed 73 men in New Hampshire and Maine about their attitudes toward health care. Their stories did not surprise him. "I get an annual physical exam," one of the men told him, "every 16 years." Even when they are worried about a health issue, they keep quiet. They repeatedly told Mr. Rhoades that they would not mention a problem to their doctors during a visit, unless the doctor specifically asked. Yet what if, Mr. Rhoades thought, he could get men to talk with other men about their health? Wouldn't they be more likely to open up to their doctors? So in a pilot program that began this fall, he is bringing small groups of seacoast men together to chat — about their sore backs, their prostates, any health matters they want. In a play on the stereotypical male aversion to roadside guidance, he titled the program "Asking for Directions." Studies show that women are usually responsible for family health care decisions. They make 150 million more visits to doctors each year than men. While 76 percent of women have had a physical in the last year, only 60 percent of men have. Men, like those in Mr. Rhoades's study, say they usually prescribed to "common sense" remedies, like curing a backache by avoiding heavy lifting. One of those interviewed said: "My dad always told me and my brothers, Don't let anybody know if you're hurting. None of us goes to the doctor if we can help it." With such reticent subjects, Mr. Rhoades knows it will take a little finesse to make them comfortable. To start, he is teaming with local businesses, so participants can meet at their workplaces. "That's where men tend to pay attention to stuff," Mr. Rhoades said. It is also convenient for them, he said, pointing out that while women will make time for their health, men avoid going out of their way. That is one reason previous attempts at men's health programs have failed, he said. "Things get started like a clinic here, or program here, and they die," said Mr. Rhoades, who has researched men's health for 20 years. "People don't come." He is also giving his subjects something they often relinquish in the doctor's office: control. The handful of men in each group, who meet once a week for five weeks, will determine how they want the discussions to work. "They'll be talking about what they want to talk about, at the pace they want," Mr. Rhoades said. "It's not, You should do this, you should do that.'` These are not touchy-feely support groups. "It's not sentimental," he said. "The vocabulary isn't `I want to support you.' It's more like talking and listening to each other: `When I get sick, I do this.' It's that kind of stuff that's not as obviously and blatantly supporting." One group of men, most of them employees at the Timberland Company in Stratham, N.H., started off with modest topics, like working out. One trim man said he took up fitness after his middle-aged father died; that opened up a discussion of family medical histories and the concerns of another man whose father had recently undergone heart surgery. By JULIE FLAHERTY Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/12/science/12MEN.html janet paterson, an akinetic rigid subtype parkie 53 now /44 dx cd / 43 onset cd /41 dx pd / 37 onset pd TEL: 613 256 8340 SMAIL: POBox 171 Almonte Ontario K0A 1A0 Canada EMAIL: [log in to unmask] URL: http://www.geocities.com/janet313/