Kevin B. Waters, MD: The most important thing in our life is our health. We see a lot of businessmen, and all of those people have a business plan. If you tell them to have a five-year business plan, they’ll have a financial plan. But when you ask them what they do for their health plan, they’ll maybe go see the doctor once a year.

Everybody should have a health plan, and that’s not just going to the doctor once a year. What are you doing exercise-wise? What is your emotional status? What is your nutritional status? And God forbid if you have anything, do you have access to the best of the best? So I think everybody should do this.

Patient: I’m here at Duke to try to find out what’s going on inside my body. I want to know more about nutrition. My schedule is really filled -- they make it easy to get in and get out.

I filled out a very thorough online questionnaire. You fast for a day or half a day, you come in, and they do blood work. And then they serve you a continental breakfast. This is all about lifestyle -- it’s not just clinical. I’m investing in my health to be able to see around corners. Now is a good time to start, so that’s what I’m doing.

How many opportunities do you have to spend a whole hour with your doctor? This is an exploratory thing -- I’m on a discovery mission here. I hope I find good things.

[Eight hours later]

Patient: Well, I finished my health assessment, and it’s been eight hours. It started out with blood work and urinalysis. Then I went in and I had a very in-depth consultation with Dr. Waters. From there I went to a treadmill stress test. Then I did a bone density test, and then I did the ultrasound on my abdominal. I came back and did a psychological assessment. Then I went in and did a nutritional assessment, and I finished up with a fitness assessment. I was literally surrounded by experts in their field.

That was followed up by a very lengthy exit consultation with Dr. Waters. He went through all my tests, all the lab work, everything that everybody had written and all their reports, and he went through everything with me.

I learned that as I get older, I need to eat less, and I need to exercise more. To have somebody just to tell you that you should do it is not going to create a paradigm shift in your life. But for somebody to tell you why you should do it, explain it to you, and give you the benefits.

These are simple things, but I learned them today. Each person I talked to held me accountable. I’m going to get back to them or they’re going to get back to me. We have e-mails, we have phone numbers.

You get the tools and the advice from experts on how to fix things or just tweak it a little bit. Or if you need to make a major shift or you’ve got a major problem, at least you know.

You didn’t get here overnight -- you’re not going to get to where you want to be overnight. It’s going to take some time, and it’s going to take some discipline. I feel confident, speaking for myself, that I’ll get there.

Waters: The most important things that we can do are eat healthfully, have a good exercise plan, and if we have any disease process, we the patient need to know what that is to take care of it. And in a busy primary care doctor’s office, they do a good job, but they just don’t have the time to give you a plan to make that happen. Here, we do.