377: Walking Toward Wellness: Dr. David Sabgir - The Founder Behind 'Walk with a Doc'

Dr. David Sabgir  00:00

usually low HDL is can lead to two more blockages. HDL acts as the garbage man it goes in takes that ball with spikes that not Coronavirus but but plaque that is oxidized and sticks to the arterial wall it strips it of its spikes, takes it to the liver and gets rid of it. So the more garbagemen we have to take out the bad plaque the better. So,

Maya Acosta  00:27

welcome to the Plant Based DFW Podcast weekly show with Dr. Riz and Maya. Our podcast focuses on lifestyle medicine, which is the use of evidence based lifestyle therapeutic approaches, such as a whole food plant based diet, regular physical exercise, adequate sleep and stress management to treat and even reverse the lifestyle related chronic diseases that are all too prevalent. Every week we will feature physicians, dietitians, health coaches and everyday people who will share their stories and speak on one of these lifestyle medicine modalities. Let's meet today's podcast guest Walk With A Doc was started in 2005 by Dr. David Sabka, a cardiologist in Columbus, Ohio. Frustrated with his inability to affect behavior change in the clinical setting. Dr. Saba invited his patients to go for a walk with him at a local park on a spring Saturday morning. And to his surprise, over 100 people showed up energized and ready to move. Since that first event in 2005. Walk With A Doc has grown as a grassroots effort with a model based on sustainability and simplicity. A doctor gives a brief presentation on a health topic and then leads participants on a walk at their own pace Walk With A Doc now extends all around the globe, with over 500 chapters worldwide, including walk with a future doc chapters led by medical students. In honor of Heart Health Month Walk With A Doc partnered with fresh avocados loved one today to show our hearts some love. Along with the app re serie Walk With A Doc created a virtual adventure along the Grand Canyon, encouraging people to form teams and to promote movements such as walking, swimming, housework, etc. You may have heard us talk about this exciting adventure which is currently going on and will conclude on February 26. We were excited to have Dr. Satbir. On the show since Dr. Riz leads one of the Dallas chapters. We will resume our walks within a couple of months and we will make sure to share more information once we are ready. In the meantime, we formed about five teams to encourage friends from all over the country to be active in their environment. If you were part of the Grand Canyon Adventure, please send us an email and tell us about your experience. What sort of workouts did you do in this episode was sit down with Dr. Saggar. To hear his story of how he founded Walk With A Doc. We will talk about the health benefits of walking regularly. Since Dr. Sabka is a cardiologist we ask additional questions that you submitted. And we talked about topics such as stents, statins, HDL, LDL, and finally, Dr. Sandberg gave us additional tips on how to keep our hearts healthy. You can help support the organization by visiting their website and purchasing gear at walk with a doc.org. We hope you enjoy this episode. Welcome Dr. David Sanger.

Dr. David Sabgir  03:22

Thank you for having me. Big fans of what you guys are doing. So it's an honor to be here. Thank you.

Maya Acosta  03:29

Well, thank you. You know, we were talking a little while ago about how we got started with the organization probably around 2019. But what it has done for our group has been amazing, because it really is kind of really bringing the physician and regular people around to feel a little bit more comfortable and having conversations,

Dr. David Sabgir  03:49

thank you for saying that. It's been a huge gift to me. I get to work with incredible people it was I don't know if I deserved all the wonderful things that have come from it, but I'm taking them and it's been a real gift thank you get to meet great people like you my

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  04:09

Well thank you, you know, it's it's a beautiful concept. And it takes the patients and the physician out of that kind of that sterile working environment makes it a little bit more more comfortable. And you can walk together and and patients then just kind of open up and are more I think they are more receptive. You know, they they ask questions more comfortably and feel more comfortable around the doctor. Yeah, it's a less sterile environment, I would say oh, and I might add, you know, it just fits so much in with our our overall philosophy about lifestyle medicine as we, as we, you know, we we push up nutrition and sleep and exercise activity and movement. And we think that's so important.

Maya Acosta  04:48

So some of our listeners are walkers. They walked with us before and then some of them just joined the Grand Canyon Adventure that you helped organize. And so I'm sure they're all going to be excited too. to hear about how you got all of this started, so can you kind of take us from the beginning, I know you've probably told your story several times, but I think our listeners would love to hear it. Again,

Dr. David Sabgir  05:09

we're talking earlier, I did my training at Ohio State, and we'd see a lot of patients. And I realized that that we had kind of this, I, you know, I actually call it a Grand Canyon back there on one side, we've got this miracle cure of not taking it too far. But you know, physical activity, as you guys know, as well, as anyone has dozens of very powerful benefits and from reducing heart disease and cancer and mental illness and improving ourselves to seem as self esteem, we could go on and on, on. And on the other side of that Grand Canyon, we only had about felt like 3% 5% of the patients were, were participating at 150 minutes a week of moderate physical activity, which is the dosage right, to get these incredible benefits. So I figured all I had to do was crossed that, you know, get turn that 3% 5% into a much bigger number. And people seem very interested. And it took me, you know, a number of years to realize that these really great conversations weren't working, the patients were coming back for 612 month follow up. And I was totally ineffective. So it was really out of frustration, after probably, you know, seven years of talking to patients realizing it wasn't working. And I didn't want to play this charade for my entire career, you know, what I'm hoping is a 3035 year career. So I, I just wanted the patient to have to say no to my face. And that was in the fall, late fall of 2004. And after that, kind of everything broke loose. And it's been a crazy wild ride and absolute blast. Every day, pretty much really, I described it as a gift. I'm very, very fortunate. It's been definitely a lot of work. But it's been a labor of love, and not a day as felt like work. It's all felt really wonderful. And we just had quick adoption, not only from the community partners, which kind of all gathered around, but also our office staff. And then we certainly don't capture every single patient, but it's a wonderful thing to offer. And we do catch quite a few patients. So I could talk for days in great.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  08:09

I mean, I think I remember when I was first learning about your story, you decided to have a walk. Tell us about that. I mean, it was just an amazing kind of event, right?

Dr. David Sabgir  08:18

It was we tried to keep we knew in the six month build up to this. That walk was April 1905. We knew we had something really special. We collected probably 800 to 1000 emails of all the patients I saw for those six months. And we would send them a weekly newsletter and we met at the Sharon Woods park. There were it just so happened that day there were a horned owls, which is a rarity in Columbus nesting across the street. So everyone walked over there. We had 101 people, couple TV trucks and the director of the metro parks and it was great because it had been six months of what is this going to be and then to have it actually materialize the way we envision was awesome.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  09:15

That's quite a turnout for your first day. Yeah, we're still hoping to get that many people out there.

Maya Acosta  09:21

And now you have over 500 chapters throughout the world, which is incredible. We're subscribed to your newsletter, The Walk With A Doc newsletter and when we hear about chapters opening up in various parts of the world, we just think this is incredible. It really motivates people to kind of have this partnership between their physician and you know, and other community members.

Dr. David Sabgir  09:43

Absolutely. I love that we're all a team we all sit around this together we all can celebrate when we see a wok pop pop up in Lima, Peru and see that I hope this can serve as a tie that binds us all together. I'm Rachel Habash, Brian Romi. And our newest teammate around Jackson. So we know how lucky we are we get to do this every day. And to see it spread like that is just fantastic.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  10:16

You mentioned Brian Romi. And we know him because that's who we work with closely. Since our Dallas chapters. We work closely with the Texas Medical Association. How did that how did that come about? That partnership? And I understand you have a lot of chapters in Texas, is that correct? We do.

Dr. David Sabgir  10:32

Right now. We have 75 chapters. You know, we'll see what happens after the pandemic, once things start to open up, you know, today's February 16, we're just starting to see this month. Typical requests for a month are about 80 to 100. But that quieted way down to 2030 a month, but the Texas Medical Association has been our strongest partner. They've been absolutely fantastic. It took us a couple years in the early teens, I think 2010 2011 to figure out exactly how we're going to do this. And I love the way they did it, they did it right. So ever since then, doctors that are members of the TMA, get to have this great program that's really working for free as part of their membership and the leadership of the TMA lisa stark walls, Deborah heater, Steve Levine, Brent and year, they've just been just perfect. So it's, we're now going on 10 years, and it's just getting stronger every

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  11:45

year. I'm a big fan of the Texas Medical Association. They are strong, strong advocates for patients, and strong advocates for physicians and they find good ways to put patients and physicians together. So I'm proud of that. And I'm so I'm a proud Texan and proud that my my medical association is so involved. So I'm glad to hear that.

Maya Acosta  12:06

So now, okay, 2020 happened and a lot of the walks stopped, we have not resumed our walks. But we have signed up to go ahead and get get that started after the snow. Because right now we have snow. But which is incredible, but I'm really looking forward to that sense of community, again, of coming together with people still kind of socially, socially distancing wearing masks just being saved. But I think, you know, a lot of people are looking forward to that. So now did that affect your organization financially, because I am not aware of how the fund if you do fundraising or how you gather the funds to keep the organization going,

Dr. David Sabgir  12:45

it did affect us financially. And I give all the credit to Rachel Habash, our CEO who fortunately, you know, built up a rainy day funds. So we're able to get through this along with, you know, both loans have helped. And the biggest thing is that the great leaders like you, Dr. Riz, and my Ark are hanging in there and excited to get back out.

Maya Acosta  13:20

Yeah, and that's and of course, I think people are probably more likely to want to do that since now. Vaccinations are out so people are feeling like okay, well, it's safe. So let's talk about the Grand Canyon Adventure. How did that come about?

Dr. David Sabgir  13:37

We did our first one. As you mentioned before, and Kilimanjaro, we pivoted, we did our first our first fundraiser ever was in 2019. And we did a live in person walk challenge. And then we, we pivoted to do that online virtual, like, you know, everybody else. And it was a huge success as far as racers platform was great. And the exciting thing was we we were hoping it would improve people's physical activity. We didn't realize that the social connection would be as powerful it was, you know, in full candor, I didn't think we should do it. I didn't think you know, when we first did Kilimanjaro as a fundraiser and with the amount of work involved. I just thought it would be not a great idea and I was totally wrong. Rachel and Brian and our team and incredible committee pulled it off and then we wanted to thank everyone for what we have done we realized that we had the opportunity thanks to the rainy day fund where we could do a free walk. And that is all thanks to fresh avocados loved one today, just a dream partner. And they made it possible that all 12 they're 39 people can do this for free. And I'm hoping you guys are enjoying. I know you have five teams, which is incredible. And I just love what our team and racers put together and none of it would be possible without fresh avocados.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  15:17

Yeah, well, it's been a lot of fun. We're getting a little bit competitive. We're loving it. And she had our captains are different teams. So and she's winning right now, because she stacked her team with some ringers, you know, to know, we've been having a lot of fun. And yeah, we were, you know, we just started, we thought we were just going to have one team. And then we had so much interest from our community that we had three teams. And then suddenly, at my hospital, my Cath Lab, when they tried to sign up for my team, they were they noticed it was full. So they formed their own team. So we have five teams from our community that are participating. And so it's pretty exciting. And it's great motivation, despite, and, of course, everybody's heard about this weather we're having in Texas. And I mean, the weather started right there on the first day of this challenge. And when Maya and I got up on Saturday, you know, I think we both thought we were gonna be walking indoors on the treadmill. And then we just kind of got, you know, got excited about it, we bundled up like little kids bundle up to go out in the snow. And we went for our walk, and we've gone outside every day since just it's been, it's been great motivation,

Maya Acosta  16:21

it's about physical activity, you are probably more active in your own environment than you realize. And so I think, you know, I was, in my mind thinking, it's kind of like Blue Zone living in the Blue Zones, people are working and cooking and cleaning and, and walking in their environment. And that's kind of I and I wonder if this was the intention of it all was to raise awareness as to how active or inactive we are in our lives.

Dr. David Sabgir  16:47

No, but I love the way you bring it out. And I do love that people get credit for cooking and shoveling snow. And I've heard some people say we should get more credit for walking in the snow then. There shouldn't be like some 1.5 factor, but

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  17:04

it is a little harder. I'll tell you my legs hurt a little bit more.

Dr. David Sabgir  17:08

You're living in Texas walking.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  17:10

We should get exactly there you go.

Maya Acosta  17:13

So Doctor some gear. Your team was one of the first ones to actually complete the the adventure. I mean, we were what two days in or three and and you finished? Were you snowboarding did I see that under your activities?

Dr. David Sabgir  17:27

shoveling snow, it had snow in it. One of one of my teammates had snow shoes. And I have a bunch of ringers on my team that I've done events with that are just much better athletes much more active than me. You are

Maya Acosta  17:42

physically active you cycle as well. Right?

Dr. David Sabgir  17:44

I love cycling. Yeah. And you run. Do you like to

Maya Acosta  17:48

run? Yeah, you're living what you're promoting, as well.

Dr. David Sabgir  17:52

I know you guys are very active. And to me, it's just an entirely different lifestyle. It's it gives me so much energy and enjoy I yeah, I love it.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  18:03

Well, certainly, I mean, for us, it gives credibility to what we're preaching to our patients. So they won't trust us if we don't actually do what we tell them that we didn't want them to do as well. So I might might ask, okay, so, talk to us a little bit about, you know, what? We're talking about all this walking, but what is it? What are the health benefits of this? What is it? What is it that we can tell our audience that? What are they going to gain from this? First we

Dr. David Sabgir  18:28

have a list of 100 reasons to walk that I think captures, you know, a lot of it. I see two channels I see. One that is arguably you would think to a vascular surgeon or cardiologists wouldn't be most important. Those are the 50% reduction in heart attack stroke, there's a 50% reduction in Alzheimer's disease, I never would have known that. Wow. Anxiety, depression, high 40s reduction. So it just goes on and on. But it turns out from you know, Michelle Seeger is brilliant. And she talks a lot about what motivates it's not necessarily people don't get out of bed on a snowy Saturday morning and walk two miles to prevent a heart attack. Even though it's doing so there's those long term benefits, but then it's the immediate stuff I think that gets us at least me personally out and kind of a mental buffer for the day. It gives me energy I know my I've heard on some of your things. I love that you say that, you know one hour of physical activity is two hours of life and I think that's also energy. So there's multiple channels and I think it's important to ask which patient like find out where their pain point is what they do, because I'm not doing a good enough job motivating my patients, although I try my darndest Um, I need to do better. So I think the motivational interviewing is something that I really want to work on because we need, we need everyone doing whatever their flavor is. We need them out there,

Maya Acosta  20:12

that that term I'm familiar with, because of lifestyle medicine. Do you have training in lifestyle medicine? Are you board certified?

Dr. David Sabgir  20:20

I'm not board certified. I have an incredible amount of respect for ACLM. Something I want to do I just have not done it yet. Yeah.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  20:29

And motivational interviewing is something that they talk about a lot. And I think that's important because we do need to find out what helps the patient accomplish the goals that we want to accomplish.

Maya Acosta  20:39

I've heard you say that 80% of cardiac disease is preventable. And you talked about being able to sleep, you know, having a reasonable weight, body weight, exercising, eating the right foods. What does a cardiologist do?

Dr. David Sabgir  20:55

Great question. So sometimes I've heard my partner say we do everything short of the knife. So we will see patients in consultation. We will do stress testing, echocardiograms, heart catheterizations, pacemakers, there's a procedure called Pericardiocentesis, where you put a needle into the heart, sac around the heart. Those are a lot of the things we do,

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  21:27

you know, I might add, the way I look at a cardiologist to is that they're, they're managing you manage hypertension. It's an important concept with regard to the health of the heart and the health of the arteries. So you manage a lot of medical issues to around the heart, you know, and so, I look at I look at my cardiologist is the guy who keeps the heart as healthy as possible, both from a procedural standpoint, but also a medical standpoint. Very well said.

Maya Acosta  21:54

So there was some questions that people submitted statins stance, for example, can you tell us about those and what are they used for? And are they do you see them as being effective?

Dr. David Sabgir  22:07

Yeah, so statins extremely effective. And I'm, you know, not in the pocket of any drug companies. I have no, no ties there. That's probably one of the best most important advances in medicine in the last 30 years. Statins will lower our LDL or bad cholesterol, and with every 40 points, the cholesterol medicine lowers. And when we talk about statins, a lot of people have heard of Lipitor, which is torva statin, Urs Zocor Simba statin crest store receive a statin are some very common ones. With every 40 points, we lower we reduce our risk 25% have a heart attack. So it's there there very powerful.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  23:03

Can I jump in there real quick before we get to stents. So when we're talking about just kind of a pure number for our cholesterol or for our LDL, what do we tell our audience? What what are we shooting for? Because I know that the standard number in our that we utilize is 200. But in my opinion, that's still too high. What do you what do you think about that?

Dr. David Sabgir  23:24

Yeah, I agree. And a lot of people use that total cholesterol number. With LDL, we try and get it, it's now you know, it definitely there's, over the years it changes, but right now, it's kind of like your golf score, the lower the better. They're seeing studies where you just can't be too low. And statins are very powerful, a lot of them will reduce your LDL 50 to 60%. From its baseline, we really shoot for under 70. But the lower the better.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  24:02

And what about total cholesterol,

Dr. David Sabgir  24:04

so that can get a little sticky because HDL the good cholesterol, we want as high as possible. So you could have a really great 205 And a really bad 190. Like if the HDL is not high enough in the HDL, we like higher than ideally 45. And if it goes above 65, then we call it a negative risk factor. So it's a very good thing.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  24:33

And my understanding is and actually I saw this in myself when I used to be much more active with the cardio is that the more physical activity like cardio and walking you do, it raises your HDL

Dr. David Sabgir  24:45

100% Absolutely.

Maya Acosta  24:47

One of the questions was What can help raise HDL and also what are the consequences of having a chronic low HDL

Dr. David Sabgir  24:56

very important questions. HCl is one of these rare are things that medicines will not improve, they haven't come up with it, they've tried. And it just no medicines work. But there are great things that are common that do work. It's it is physical activity, fruits, vegetables, soluble fiber. And actually, alcohol in moderation will increase the HDL, but that obviously comes with baggage. So it's something to, you know, keep in mind, because, you know, we saw in the last 18 months that overall alcohol reduces mortality, it does reduce our risk of heart disease in moderation. But it obviously does a lot of other things. So it's, it's an important discussion to have with your physician, you just

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  25:55

said a lot of things that we talked about, which is fruits and vegetables, and fiber, and then exercise, those are all, you know, things we push in our lifestyles. You know, the the alcohol thing, I hear what you're saying. And, you know, I think that unfortunately, our society doesn't do alcohol in moderation very well, right. Yeah. So if we give them permission to do so then, you know, they gotta stick to their guns. And then, of course, like you said, alcohol carries its risks. We know that there are several cancers that are caused by alcohol, for example. Right? Exactly. Yeah. So I agree. That's a, you know, that's a kind of a double edged sword. There's some good to it. And there's some bad too,

Maya Acosta  26:34

you probably get this question a lot. So if a person who tends to eat a lot of green leafy vegetables, right, and then they're prescribed something like warfarin, or something like that, do you advise patients to do then to just completely avoid the greens?

Dr. David Sabgir  26:49

Another really important question we do not, we encourage them to maintain a constant diet. So if they the spinach salad every day, that's fine. They're cooling windows, maybe just throwing out there five milligrams a day instead of three milligrams. But as long as their diet doesn't fluctuate terribly, we are all for is many greens as you can eat. That advice? Yeah,

Maya Acosta  27:18

a lot of people are going to be happy about that. And then you were going to talk to us about stents. So stents

Dr. David Sabgir  27:23

are controversial. First and foremost, if you come into the emergency department with an acute coronary syndrome, stents can save your life. Okay. And to be clear what a stent is, it's something Dr. Riz does, you know, for a living, you know, we take a catheter my partner's I don't do stance on non invasive, but they take a catheter and a balloon, it goes into the coronary arteries, which sit on top of the heart. There's a balloon that presses the plaque against the wall and the stent, which looks like the inside of a ballpoint pen, that spring, will deploy and hold the plaque against the wall, what we've learned in in studies from 2007, and then again, in 2017, then in chronic situations, medications can act just as well as stents, if it's not an acute situation. So it is now the cardiology world is doing a much better job of making sure patients take these anti anginal medications, medications that help prevent chest pain or, or jaw or neck pain or whatever, you know, a national equivalent may be and make sure they exhaust those resources before going in with a stent.

Maya Acosta  28:56

Okay, that's good to know. It is February is Heart Health Month. What tips do you have for our listeners?

Dr. David Sabgir  29:03

Great questions. So I like to make it simple for myself with an acronym. I just start down the alphabet. So A is abuse for tobacco abuse. I think it's you know, Doctor is I'm sure. vascular surgeons see a lot of patients that that smoke, so that's a huge risk factor. And we want to make sure that's, you know, not going on. Blood pressure is being and we try and keep that below 130 over 80. That's a major cardiac risk factor and it's not sexy. It's it's kind of you know, boring, but it's very powerful. So we try and get that down. See if for cholesterol has. There's two components like we talked about HDL and LDL, and both of those are equally important. or to get back at your really good question. low HDL is usually run. It can be. We've heard about family history and being important in heart disease. To me that is usually the pathway that family history travels on. So if I see a young person that needs to go to the cath lab, I wouldn't be surprised if their HDL was above 40. Usually low HDL is can lead to two more blockages. HDL x is the garbage man it goes in takes that ball with spikes that are not Coronavirus, but flax is oxidized and sticks to the arterial wall, it strips it of its spikes, takes it to the liver and gets rid of it. So the more garbagemen we have to take out the bad plaque the better. So HDL and LDL, and then D diabetes. For those you know, there are 108 million people is my understand what pre diabetes or diabetes, which is obviously a mind blowing number. So what we can do to keep their average blood sugar, that's the hemoglobin a one see what we can do to keep that down is really important. 90% of those are type two diabetics, which we can do a lot with. And then II exercise is, is I've chosen to do that and commit, you know, my life's work to that, because it's clearly the most important things. I'm not, yes, I'm an Exercise aficionado, I love it. But it's just it's the most powerful thing by far that we can offer to our patients. It doesn't replace statins or stents or you know, blood pressure medicines, but it is an incredible addition and so important. And then one thing that has become all the more true over the last 11 months is seeing the role that stress, anxiety, depression, which it feels like just about everyone has, understandably so it's the seven to nine hours of sleep, the practicing self care which we as a country are not good at at all. So just taking our foot off the gas, if it's meditation, or yoga or coloring books or going for you know, just going for a walk does that so well. I think you know, those are my tips for a healthy heart.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  32:48

Well, I like it, I'm gonna I'm gonna steal the the ABCD.

Maya Acosta  32:52

What I like most about Walk With A Doc is it allows people who are curious, but maybe not necessarily as confident, it allows them to come out and it feels supported. Well,

Dr. David Sabgir  33:04

you guys have been great. And I can't even imagine how fortunate your your participants are to have you as leaders.

Maya Acosta  33:12

Well, thank you. I mean, it's your organization that allows us to kind of have a feel like we're part of something bigger. And that's just the thing is that whether it's walking with us in person or participating in the Grand Canyon Adventure, all of us feel like we're part of something even greater. And it means it means a lot. It is really more a sense of community, like you said,

Dr. David Sabgir  33:34

Dr. Reyes, if you're going to use that I have a few more letters. But yeah, please, f is family history. And that's just something you know, to be aware of. And g is group activity, which there have been some studies like a while ago that looked at 20 years ago, people in active in their church or quilting clubs or bowling leagues lived longer, they lived better. And now we're seeing so much great data on social connection. And that's what you're providing for your Walkers and the data. You know, we've been very fortunate to work with the AARP that data they have showing not only social connection, but a sense of purpose. They're seeing big numbers with reduction in very specific diseases, which of course leads to reduction in hospitalization. So now that we've had social connection taken away from us, we realize how bad how visceral it is, and I think all of us have a much stronger sense of what this is doing for our health to when we are connected.

Maya Acosta  34:49

This whole Grand Canyon Adventure is kind of going to get you know people back to come in out to our walks the people that walk with us and getting are involved in maybe finding a local chapter? Do you see anything in the future again, similar to the Grand Canyon that we can all look forward to.

Dr. David Sabgir  35:08

We are so we've got something in the works that just had a call about yesterday. So they're first with there's a wonderful Cancer Research Foundation at Mount Sinai in New York called the SAM Waxman Cancer Research Foundation, we've been lucky enough to work with Dr. Waxman and his team. And this is all tentative, but right now we have an event that will be starting July 4, that I'm not allowed to announce, but you asked, so just throw it out. We're all in this together. So whatever we can do, and then we are going to do our annual fundraiser in late fall, that was like Kilimanjaro. And we'll, it'll likely be a hybrid event, hopefully, by then, as we've more of us about our vaccines, and feel, you know, more comfortable. So please stay tuned. Thank you.

Maya Acosta  36:12

Yeah, that is something Yeah, I'm really excited about it. I again, we love being part of your organization. And we thank you so much for putting it all of this together. And really, I feel like you kind of revived people with this adventure. It's like, we've all been sitting there going, Well, are we gonna gather or not? And then this comes up. And it's like, where I was very happy to see people, you know, who are familiar with us messaging us and saying, Well, I can't do a lot of walking, but maybe a mile a day because of some health condition. But the thing is, they want to do it. So they're motivated. And it's just like, Yes, that's what we want.

Dr. David Sabgir  36:49

So great. How can you I'm talking to you my How could you not go out and walk and do your best? That's great.

Maya Acosta  36:56

How can our listeners support your organization? Your your website is walk with a doc.org? Is there a way that people can support it and want to help you keep it, you know, keep everything going? Very kind

Dr. David Sabgir  37:09

of you? There is? Yeah, so we have a shop where you can buy some Walk With A Doc gear like here, like you're wearing. And we also Yeah, for the we are a 501 C three charity. So for those that want to donate, it's much appreciated. We put it into very good causes, a lot of times it's to underserved areas, underserved countries, and we're very happy to have about 40 walk with a future docks so and then schools where the kids are going and you know, Doctor res med students, and we're hundreds of 1000s of dollars in debt, and you don't have the funds to start something. So we're getting the young kids out and very kind of you thank you

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  38:02

one of our I gave a lecture, I think it was at UTMB, University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and a very, very motivated young lady was the head of the group there. And so last I know she was working to be one of the WALK WITH THE FUTURE Doc's that we were trying to help bring support that

Maya Acosta  38:20

they are who we want as a lay person, what we want to see in our physician eat healthy exercise.

Dr. David Sabgir  38:28

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. This next generation is just phenomenal.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  38:34

I just want to say thank you for coming and spending your evening with us. You know, we're doing this interview with late in the evening on a what is today, Tuesday, because that's when two doctors can actually get together. Yeah, right. But I want to thank you for spending your evening with us. And I know I know our audience is going to really enjoy watching this.

Dr. David Sabgir  38:52

Thank you guys, and I hope we're able to team up for many, many years. Thank you.

Maya Acosta  38:58

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