Driving 6,000 mile message on men's health

ORLANDO, Florida (WPVI) -- Two doctors hit the road this week to drive home a message for men - to take care of your health.

Dr. Sijo Parekattil and Dr. Jamin Brambhatt of Orlando Health, leave Thursday, June 11, from Florida, in a Tesla Model S on their Drive for Men's Health journey up the East Coast, and west to California, arriving there on June 20th.

It comes amid a new survey which found that more than 80 per cent of men could remember the make and model of their first car, yet barely half could remember their last medical check-up.

On the road, the doctors want to reach as many men as possible, talking to them directly, but also on Twitter and other social media, live webcasts, and videos.

"We're going to have videos coming out every single day," says Dr. Brahmbatt.

"While we're driving, we're going to have over 200, about 250 lectures from physicians around the country, experts on men's health," he continued.

The doctors created Drive for Men's Health and made their first road trip last year as an off-the-wall, but it was a rousing success.

This year, the trip is longer, with more stops - including Philadelphia on Sunday evening.

Dr. Brahmbhatt says every day, they were seeing men in their practice who waited too long to get medical attention.

"Sometime, it was heartbreaking," he said.

"By the time they came in to get checked out, we were diagnosing them with aggressive cancers or serious diseases," he continued. "We wanted to change that, whatever it took."

"We know men love cars and we thought rolling up in a sleep, high-tech, state-of-the-art Tesla would be a great way to engage them in conversation," said Dr. Parekattil.

The doctors say more men should treat their bodies like their cars.

Dr. Brahmbatt says, "We want to get every single mile out of that car. Your body's essentially like that. You need to get checks done per recommendation, per guidelines - every one year, five years, ten years, whatever the guidelines are."

Anyone interested can talk to the doctors in person on Sunday, June 14th at 7 P.M. at the Philadelphia Center for Sexual Medicine, 2 Bala Plaza, Bala Cynwyd, Pa.

You can also follow the trip live, send a question, or watch a video from the website.