UMC community gets pumped up

Nicholas Valenzuela Arizona Daily Wildcat Greg Pivirotto, president and CEO of University Medical Center, stands in the recently opened fitness gym at the hospital. Membership to the center is available to anyone who works or attends classes at the Arizona Health Sciences Center. There is already a 200-person waiting list for membership.

The Health and Wellness Center opened on the main floor of the hospital 11 weeks ago, said Greg Pivirotto, president and chief executive officer of UMC.

"I have heard a lot of overwhelmingly positive comments," he said. "I really pushed for this thing to be built and had wanted it for quite a few years."

Built in the hospital's new north wing, the center occupies about 5,000 square feet, including locker rooms and a room used for fitness classes, Pivirotto said. The locker rooms have showers and the center provides free towels for members to use.

Based on the size of the center, he said the hospital first set a membership limit of 800, which has since grown to more than 1,000 members with 200 people on a waiting list.

Membership is available to anyone who works or attends classes in the Arizona Health Sciences Center, including UMC and the schools of medicine, nursing and pharmacy, Pivirotto said.

UMC and UA employees pay $15 per month to use the gym, Pivirotto said, and the amount is lower for medical residents and students.

"Employees can just take the amount off of their paychecks, so really, you don't even notice the $7.50 taken off on top of what else is already taken out," he said.

The center is L-shaped and separated into two sections. The front section is open to all members during operating hours, while the rear section is reserved for patients doing cardiac rehabilitation during the middle of the day, said Lawton Snyder, directo r of the wellness center.

Snyder said the center is always busy, especially early in the morning and after 4:30 p.m.

The center's equipment includes 10 treadmills, 15 stationary bicycles, six stepping machines, three rowing machines and two cross-country skiers.

The center also has an aerobic exercise room with a specially padded floor, Snyder said. Several classes are held each day, including yoga and aerobics, he said.

Dr. Millie Palmer, an assistant professor of clinical ophthalmology, said she found the gym very convenient.

Earlier this week, Palmer worked out at the center after a full day in surgery, even though she also belongs to a club near her home.

"They have nice equipment here, and it is not too crowded," Palmer said. "They also have TVs on the treadmills, which is great because each person can watch what they want."

Pivirotto said the patients, especially those in the cardiac rehabilitation program, enjoy using the center because they do not have to join another gym in order to continue with their heart-strengthening exercises.

To equip the room with air circulation and electricity the hospital spent between $100,000 and $120,000, Pivirotto said. For a while, he said, he was worried that the center would not be popular and he would have to take responsibility for that cost.

"I decided that the amount was a fair gamble. The center is in the new wing of the hospital, so a lot of the improvements we made would have been made no matter what the space was turned into," Pivirotto said.

Snyder said the gym has a small resource center, which is full of donated books. With monetary donations, he said he would like to purchase health and wellness-related videos and books, as well as a computer capable of running CD-ROMs that patients and th e public can use to find information.

"We are trying to be wholistically wellness-focused. Not just on exercise, but also on stress management, flexibility, and we will be offering nutrition information," Snyder said.