Dr. Doyon's Ride: Local Physician Takes On the Pan Mass. Challenge
A Bit of Good News (For A Change)
Dear Readers: I wanted to take a break from the machinations of wicked corporations and venal machine politicians, to bring some good news to your attention – namely, the story of my friend Dr. Laura Doyon, MD, FCAS1, FASMBS2 and her decision and commitment to taking on the Pan Mass. Challenge this weekend.
( Dr. Laura Doyon; photo credit — Emerson Health. )
Dr. Doyon is a bariatric surgeon at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Massachusetts. We have known each other since elementary school in Duxbury, and I am proud to call her one of my dearest old friends.
She graduated from Tufts University School of Medicine, completing her Residency at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City; at both institutions, she achieved distinction, winning awards for excellence in teaching and building doctor-patient relationships. Indeed, Dr. Doyon is no stranger to the “Isle of the Mannahatoes,” as Melville called it, having graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology and Anthropology from New York University in that immense city (she even took her country bumpkin friend, the author of this article, out of the Berkshire wilderness for a night on the town; very little of that in Williamstown, Massachusetts; trout and snow-shoeing, yes. Nightlife — not so much).
Meanwhile, as many are no doubt aware, the Pan Mass Challenge is an annual bike-a-thon that raises money to help combat the terrible scourge of cancer. Dr. Doyon, as a bariatric, or weight loss, surgeon, noted the high correlation between obesity and cancer, and it was concern for her patients that partly motivated her to look at the Pan Mass Challenge.
We certainly know that obesity is reaching epidemic proportions in America, in great part because of some of the very same issues covered by this publication: powerful corporate interests — in this case, in great part, but not limited to, Big Agriculture and the food industry — capturing the apparatus of the State (in the abstract sense of the word) in order to add to their already enormous power and wealth.
And in the other corner of the ring we have people like Dr. Doyon, great humanist physicians, an archetype that dots our literature, from St. Luke to Spoon River Anthology to Field of Dreams, where Burt Lancaster’s moving portrayal of small-town Minnesota doctor and 1920s baseball player Moonlight Graham lodged itself in our collective memory. Dr. Doyon — a Mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife, and a friend — is of the same type as these generous physicians, fighting the good fight everyday for her patients, and for the general good. I am proud to call her my friend.
There were also other, more personal reasons Dr. Doyon decided to take on the PMC Challenge: Dr. Doyon realized that she herself also needed to get moving, a realization I myself have shared with her.
“I was motivated to start a journey to fitness by my courageous patients whose daily efforts to become healthier gave me the ultimate wake up call that I too needed to get moving,” said Dr. Doyon.
“I discovered that riding was certainly a great workout, but moreover meditative and centering, and it is now something I couldn't imagine living my life without. Being able to put a passion towards a good cause is one of life's greatest gifts. I have long admired others who ride PMC and am finally taking the plunge myself this year. Fifty miles isn't much in the world of distance cycling, but it is a big deal to me,” she said.
And bicycle is really a lovely way to do so in large parts of New England; the features that make places like Cornwall, or the English Cotswolds, popular biking spots apply equally to New England: a scenic landscape of originally agricultural villages spaced relatively evenly (every two to five miles, typically), with established roads and paths. I think, in fact, that this could be a way for regions like our own to leverage some of our natural advantages, as younger generations grow ever more suspicious of the automobile (the average age at which teenagers first obtain a drivers license has climbed steadily).
This publication routinely covers dispiriting efforts by various charlatans and mountebanks to enclose upon our common lands, waters, and liberties; how delightful it is, then, to cover precisely the opposite subject matter, a woman brave in the cause of human happiness and well-being!
It is a rare and good thing, and I hope readers who are able may take the time to donate to Dr. Doyon’s Pan Mass Challenge. The link to donate appears at the end of this article.
Dr. Doyon wishes to dedicate her ride to the memories of Lori Sparrow, Nancy Evans, and Jianzjong Li.
SUPPORT DR. DOYON: 1. For those of you on Facebook, here is a link: https://www.facebook.com/donate/362455639371955/10111758060314679
2. Or, you can go directly to www.donate.pmc.org, and type in “Laura Doyon” in the “Find a rider” search box.
3. Finally, for those who may wish to send a check, they can be made payable to Dr. Laura Doyon, and mailed to Dr. Doyon’s work address, which is:
Dr. Laura Doyon
Center for Weight Loss
Emerson Hospital Center for Specialty Care
54 Baker Ave. Extension
Suite 101
Concord, MA 01742
Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
Fellow of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery