June is Men’s Health Month, and STHS Nurse Practitioner Max Martell’s advice to men is simple: Go see your doctor.
Traditionally, Martell said, men are reluctant to schedule routine medical care, but that decision could cost them dearly from a health standpoint.
Martell recently visited The Lake 94.7-FM studios to discuss men’s health and things you can do to man up this Men’s Health Month.
Listen to Max’s conversation with Charles Dowdy of The Lake in the embedded audio player below or at The Lake website. You can also scroll down to read an edited transcript of their conversation.
Charles Dowdy: Our friends from St. Tammany Health System are here. Your full name is Max Martell, and you are a …?
Max Martell: Nurse practitioner in the St Tammany Physicians’ Network Covington clinic.
Charles: OK, and your background -- because it is an interesting one – is what?
Max: Well, I retired from the Army active duty eight years ago. Spent 22 years and a day. All of my medical training actually occurred in the military. I had a couple of tours across the world. (It was a ) great 22 years.
Charles: Couple of places you were include?
Max: Middle East, Korea, Europe.
Charles: Sounds very low key.
Max: Beach-front property.
Charles: Well, good for you – and good for us that we have got folks like you serving. So, let’s talk a little bit about what you want to talk about today, which is what?
Max: Men’s health. June is actually promoted as Men’s Health Month, but men’s health should be promoted year round. One of the things we do as men is that we fail to take care of ourselves. Women take care of themselves greater than men. Usually, you find that the person who brings the male to the clinic is the spouse or daughter who actually finds something with that male person. I think one of the reasons we find the delay in care of men is that we are so focused on our careers and we identify with what we do not what we are. That can increase some stressors in our life.
So, mental health is a big issue. We are talking (two-thirds) of suicides are actually male, which is about four times greater than actually female.
Prostate cancer (screenings are) something that need to be done. Early in our lives, as men, we need to start teaching our young men to do testicle self-exams.
So, there is a lot of education that needs to be done – not only discussing cancers but also heart disease, early diagnosis and management. Thirty-something percent of males actually go undiagnosed with hypertensive issues that can lead to kidney issues. That can lead to uncontrolled diabetes, sudden heart attacks.
So there is a multitude of things that we fail to look at as men because, like I said, we feel like we are invincible. It is important to engage with your providers on a regular basis.
Charles: Alright, I am going to stop you right there because I believe the biggest problem with men is providers – not that there aren’t providers but the fact that they don’t even have a doctor. I think there are a lot of guys just wandering around out there, just bumping around from place to place, but who don’t really have a relationship with a medical professional.
Max: That is exactly correct. Over 30% of our male population does not have an active provider. We tend to use an urgent care clinic, which is great, but we need to follow on with our maintenances. There are different levels of maintenance. It is important to establish with a primary care provider so that we can actually meet those milestones – that when we hit 20 years old, we are actually getting those specific exams, when we hit our 30s and our 40s and our 50s there are specific tests that we do for screening that is important. In order to have that done it is important to establish with a primary care provider.