You get a half-hour with two of the top doctors in the country. What do you ask them?
Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen gave us their full attention (aside from handing back a patient’s chart and asking a cabbie to turn off the air conditioning) in a Denver-Cleveland-New York conference call. Their column, will appear weekly in The Denver Post starting today.
Like good doctors putting a patient at ease, they made it clear that there are no stupid questions.
“When we first appeared on ‘Oprah,’ we were getting 80,000 questions a week,” says Roizen, 63, from his Cleveland practice. “There is a hunger for a no-embarrassment zone. They’ll ask us anything, literally.”
The path to celebrity doctorhood is not something either of them sought, however.
“It was completely unexpected,” says Oz, 49, speaking from a New York City taxi. “I only got into television because my wife said, ‘You’re telling me these stories, and people can learn from them. You need to get this off your chest and not feel like a failure.’ “
Failure?! This is the great and powerful Oz speaking, official “Oprah” doctor, best-selling author, host of his own new show, not to mention Harvard grad and heart surgeon.
His desire to reach more people resulted in “Second ap with Dr. Oz” on Discovery Health and led to his collaboration with Roizen on the show and “You: The Owner’s Manual” and other best-selling books.
“You know ‘Jersey Boys’?” says Roizen. “We’ve never had a piece of paper — just a Jersey handshake.”
They are medical colleagues, business partners, and most of all, pals. Roizen calls Oz “The Wizard.”
“When Mehmet and I started working together, it was kind of like just laughing together,” says Roizen. “We worked very hard at making the books funny. We would make each other laugh so giggle-ously, uproariously, for four hours on Friday nights and Sunday mornings. My wife would have to pull me off the floor.”
They keep it fun
They see each other weekly, when Roizen flies to New York to tape his “Enforcer” segments on the “Dr. Oz” show. They sound like teenagers planning a sleepover. In fact, Roizen stays at Oz’s northern New Jersey home. “He has a great workout area in the basement, we play two-on-two basketball down there with his kids,” Roizen says.
Oz jumps in: “The house is not as luxurious as it sounds. It’s just built into a berm so there’s a big open space downstairs.”
They take their own advice, making exercise fun. “Make it a game. Finding a buddy is key, then it’s not only peer pressure, but it’s peer fun,” Roizen says.
On his new show, Oz dashes up and down the stairs, answering audience questions with a straight face, no matter the subject.
“People are chortling and laughing and at the same time they’re wondering what the truth is. They make fun, but they are really listening to your answer,” says Oz, who is unafraid of any bodily function.
How does he balance taping a TV show, writing a book on pregnancy with Roizen, teaching surgery at Columbia University, directing the Heart Institute at New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, as well as sustaining a 23-year marriage and raising four kids?
“A lot of it is being ruthless with my calendar. I don’t go out to dinner at all. Dinners with friends are fun and all, but it makes your schedule rushed, you feel bloated and heavy and can’t get to sleep. I’m basically in the studio or home.”
Kristen Browning-Blas: 303-954-1440 or kbrowning@denverpost.com
