Good morning! Awesome to be with you on this cool October Friday morning.

Heads up: I don’t know why I’m getting so mushy—it’s not even Thanksgiving yet. I think it’s because I just finished this great book and I’m currently standing at the door handing out treats (don’t tell, please, but I actually wrote this last night).

Ok, mushy.

We dedicate today’s newsletter to our physicians and healthcare leaders around the world who care deeply for their communities. We are grateful every day to collaborate with the crème de la crème, the elite, the best.

All of us at WWAD unfailingly believe in the power and strength of us all coming together. Please know we are thinking about you, and we are extremely thankful to have you in our collective lives.

You, my leaders, are in the most literal way humanly possible #walkingthewalk.

Now the controversial stuff—issues that, as CEO, I’m forced to address, but it is certainly not the desirable part of my job.

We have recently been getting more and more calls/emails from WWAD guests who have been increasingly uncomfortable having zombies welcomed at their walk by the physician leaders (currently, they are essentially just in one location—Great Falls, VA).

While there are some rather vocal opponents (I’ve read your letters), many of our more “open” guests have done a nice job of pointing out the many upsides of accepting the living dead in their chapter.

Pros:

• Having the undead as guests allows us to utilize a lot of first-year med students; it’s a natural way for them to get their “feet wet” without exposing them to significant risk.
• The zombies are primarily flesh-eating (i.e., they won’t be hogging all the apples, bananas, and granola bars—like some people I know!)
• To be honest, they’re lower maintenance—we don’t need to check their blood pressure (they don’t have one). This allows us to save considerably on the cost of blood pressure cuffs. If we were to multiply this by 647 sites, well, you can imagine.

Sure, there are a couple of issues:

• Several of our rotating Great Falls physician leaders have expressed difficulty understanding their questions, saying that many of the zombies will just all talk at once. That, in and of itself, would be okay, but most of the time it’s a low-pitched, indecipherable groaning that drowns out other participants’ questions.
• They (the zombies) also don’t necessarily walk in the same direction. I mean, if we’re being blunt, a lot of them just wander around the park aimlessly. There has been more than one collision this fall.
• Regarding having so many zombies together, appropriate concerns have been raised by the Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD). In recent closed-door meetings, there is growing concern about a zombie apocalypse. We understand, and that’s fair, but there’s an education process here. The odds of that going down are extremely unlikely. We concede that if it did, they are correct—that would not be good. There would be more than a small chance that it could potentially lead to a global breakdown of society, which in turn would cause a massive rise of zombies that would engage in a general assault on civilization.

So, candidly, I see their point. But again, very unlikely.

The FCPD also makes another valid argument. As a whole, they (again, zombies) are not deriving all the same health benefits as most of our other guests (they’re already undead).

Putting these pros and cons together, like many decisions, it’s not easy.

Let me please say this: if you do happen to attend the Great Falls Walk with a Doc (Great Falls Park) this Saturday, please exhibit caution. I endured a minor zombie bite (left shoulder) on a site visit to WWAD–Great Falls in late 2023.

For the almost six days that followed, I had an overwhelming craving for caraway seeds, was listening to big band music only from the late ’30s, and I refused to wear anything but the color orange.

Now I’m better, but to this day we’ve never figured out why.

I’m sorry, what was I talking about again?

-david

P.S. This is a medical newsletter for goodness’ sake—I don’t know why everybody is talking about zombies! This is definitely the most relevant study of the week. Thank you, Emma Loewe, and Outside Magazine (article link), for reaching out!

P.P.S. Bryan had a great thought of encouraging everyone to wear a Halloween costume if they’re attending a walk this weekend! If you do, please either email them to us or share them in our Facebook group. We’re going to make you famous.

Disclaimer: If there were a Great Falls, VA WWAD, it would be safe to attend. No Zombies there.