BERNIE Crimmins has never been short of motivation to push the message that men need to look after their health.
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He watched his brother, Hawthorn premiership player Peter, die of testicular cancer in 1976, and leant support when a friend of close mate, illustrator Paul Harvey, committed suicide.
They are experiences the Templestowe doctor hopes others don’t have to go through, prompting him to write two books designed to make men’s health a more widely discussed issue.
Crimmins, 56, was in the south-west this week promoting the latest of those books, Blokes’ Health 2: A doctor’s guide to the three Ds, depression, diabetes and dicks.
The book is a follow-up to Blokes’ Health: The doctor’s guide that comes with a laugh, which touches on heart and lung disease and prostate and bowel cancer.
Both publications are about 100 pages and feature cartoons by Harvey.
Crimmins said the death of his brother had a profound impact on his career direction and motivated him to pen his first book.
“That’s what got me into men’s health, Peter’s death,” he said.
‘‘I’ve got three boys of my own (and) I was out of a family of five boys.”
He said the success of the book prompted him to think “what are the next big areas?” that most affect men’s health.
“And I thought of depression and diabetes and the third bit, thinking of the letter D — I thought dicks.
“We also had one of (Harvey’s) best mates commit suicide, that was one of the big impetuses of doing it, talking about depression.”
Crimmins is a yearly visitor to the south-west, working as a relief doctor at Terang when Neil Jackson takes leave.
The former Hawthorn club doctor attended Kolora-Noorat training on Thursday night to speak about men’s health — a subject he says is too often swept under the carpet.
He said prostate and bowel cancer did not receive the attention accorded breast cancer and called on governments to make it easier for men to be tested for the conditions.
“The stats still show men have a shorter life span than women. We have more heart disease, more lung disease, are fatter,” he said. “Breast and prostate cancer are equivalent to each other.
‘‘There’s so much emphasis on breast cancer that they forget prostate cancer kills just as many.”
afawkes@fairfaxmedia.com.au