Strength Training in Primary Care
First off I apologize if this topic has come up before. Bits and pieces seem to come up within the Starting Strength forum/ resources/community but I wasn't able to find any discussion at length on the topic. I would also like to thank the starting strength community, particularly Mr. Rippetoe, Dr. Sullivan, Dr. Feigenbaum and Dr. Baraki for renewing my passion for strength training as I come out of residency and begin a family practice in Canada.
Why can't strength training be a part of primary care? I appreciate the challenges that were raised on the Barbell Medicine podcast re: producing high level, practice changing research, but do we really need such studies? I also agree that strength training is hard, people are lazy and that getting patients (let alone other HCPs) to buy-in to strength training is an uphill battle. However, considering the heavy burden of preventable diseases and increasing healthcare costs, it stands to reason that the system will eventually wake up to the fact that investing in strength training is good medicine. This is particularly true in a public, single-payer, system.
I'm excited about the new Steady MD initiative that Dr. Feigenbaum and Dr. Baraki are undertaking. This is a huge step in the right direction.
I'm also envious of what Dr. Sullivan has going on. Why can't that be a part of a family medicine/ primary care practice? The potential legal, ethical and financial repercussions not-withstanding.
I live in a rural community of 4000 in Ontario, Canada, with a catchment of like 20,000. There are 6-8 practicing physicians at any given time. I am just starting off with 500 patients and will grow to a practice ~1500 over the next year. My goal would be to have a well equipped gym in my clinic for my patients but don't see this being economically sustainable (not yet anyway) and the medico-legal implications are daunting. To overcome these limitations, I'm planning on opening a facility similar to what Dr. Sullivan has going on. Unfortunately, I will need to have a slightly broader membership initially to make the project sustainable. At first I may not allow my practice patients to join as I'm not sure how best to navigate the patient-physician relationship in this setting.
Are there are other PCPs on this forum attempting to incorporate strength training into their medical practice? Any thoughts/ suggestions?
-Eric