Men, Please Get a Check-up - it’s not just about Your Health

Sunday is Father’s Day, and like many of you, I think of my dad and special moments we’ve had. They didn’t necessarily occur on Father’s Day, but they are vivid as can be.

Growing up in Greater Detroit, I had a paper route as many boys did.

Normally, I delivered the morning paper on my bike, but on certain winter holidays the paper was so large, stuffed with advertisements, that it wasn’t possible.?

So my dad and I loaded up papers in his car, and he drove while I delivered them. When we were finished, we'd stop somewhere for hot chocolate.

When I think of the two of us just talking over our warm cocoa, I still feel nostalgic, and grateful for those occasions.?

That’s what being with your dad -- or uncle or grandfather -- can do for a boy or young man. It creates a time of sharing, perhaps wisdom, and the feeling of being listened to and cherished.?

Sadly, there are many young men who don’t get to experience that.?

Men die far younger than they should. More than 40% of men do not go to doctors at all, which is a key reason why women live about seven years longer.

Many men never get check-ups or recommended screenings for heart disease or cancer, and by the time they feel something might be wrong -- such as having symptoms of a heart attack or prostate cancer -- and they decide to see a doctor, the prognosis is dire.?

Such avoidance is the case for many men, but one that is especially pernicious in our Black communities, for a number of cultural, historic, financial or emotional reasons.

At University Hospitals, we took action to change that paradigm. Our UH Cutler Center for Men is designed to close this healthcare gender gap.

While the flagship location is at UH Ahuja Medical Center, the Men’s Health program is offered across the UH system, including at the UH Otis Moss, Jr. Center in Cleveland’s Fairfax neighborhood.

Greg Hall, MD, is the medical director of the UH Cutler Center; as an internal medicine physician, he specializes in health for all African-Americans -- both men and women. Randy Vince, MD, specializes in urologic oncology, a sub-specialty focusing on surgical management of certain cancers, and he is the Director of the Minority Men’s Health program for the UH Cutler Center.

Dr. Vince often speaks at community events, especially those aimed at Black men, letting them know how and why they might want to find a primary care provider (PCP). Many men, he says, have not realized the effect that diet and exercise can have on diabetes and high blood pressure, and that there is a link between those conditions and other conditions such as erectile dysfunction and low testosterone.?

He explains to them that erectile dysfunction is a symptom of poor cardiovascular health. In these efforts, he finds out that many in his audience haven’t been checked for diabetes, and are not being treated for it, which eventually can lead to loss of sight or organ failure. Or they don’t know that a colonoscopy -- for which one is sedated -- not only diagnoses, but can eradicate, colorectal cancer in its early stages.

Dr. Hall, the former chair of Ohio’s Commission of Minority Health, also speaks locally and at many national conferences. He says that based on his interactions with patients, or with men who don’t see doctors, that a key reason many men procrastinate about a medical check-up is no longer valid: They don’t need to get a rectal exam to check the prostate for cancer. Instead, a quick blood draw and PSA test is used to determine the risk.?

While many men are afraid that by going to the doctor a health problem will be discovered, he assures them that most men find out that they are healthy, which brings huge relief.

Drs. Vince and Hall say they have noticed a definite uptick not only in the patients who come to see them, but also in the number who attend the many community men’s health events. Both say where there used to be an audience of five people, there are now typically more than 100 participants.

This is a very good sign, of course, but our work will continue.

Because, as Dr. Vince tells them, men who do not go to the doctor -- especially Black men -- die at disproportionate rates. When he speaks to men, he reminds them it is not just about them and their own health, but also about what they mean to their families.

When men die young -- as fathers, grandfathers, uncles or brothers -- a generation or two of children will never know the love and guidance they will miss out on. But eventually they feel the effects of such a loss in so many other ways.

These tragedies need not occur.?

Perhaps on this Father’s Day, children, parents and other relatives can share with these men how much they are loved, and needed. And that it is an act of love to take care of oneself by seeing a doctor for a check-up -- not only for their family, but for future children and grandchildren to come.

To learn more about the UH Cutler Center or to make an appointment, click her