Health Network prescribes to Hock show

Leonard Hock, the folksy M.D. who appears five times a week on WDAF, Channel 4, likes to say he's "not a professional media person." But you wouldn't know it from his video resume. Hock, whose on-air trademark is a stethoscope draped over his right shoulder, has been doing his health tips on Channel 4 - at 7 a.m. Monday through Thursday and at noon Tuesday - since volunteering for the task in 1995. A year and a half ago Hock was approached by the giant hospital chain Health Midwest, which was looking to get into the TV business through its for-profit arm Medi-Scope. With family physician Hock as host, MediScope produced a series of 90-second health segments, which it has sold to 22 stations around the country for use in their newscasts. Now the Health Network, a 24-hour cable channel owned by Fox, has picked up a 30-minute program featuring Hock and produced by MediScope. The show, which will begin airing later this year, profiles the men and women behind some of the 20th century's biggest medical breakthroughs. (Time Warner Cable carries the Health Network on its digital tier; Comcast offers a rival channel, Discovery Health.) With his walrusy silver mustache and high-pitched voice, Hock has a disarming presence on TV. If this were a one-hour drama, he'd play the barber, not the doctor. But these qualities lend authenticity to his "House Call" segments on WDAF. In fact, Hock says viewers don't hesitate to come up to him at the grocery store and tell him their health problems. "Research shows that people feel individually impacted more by the health segment of the news than the reports of world news or the local crime or the auto accidents," says Hock, who may not be a professional media person but sounds like he talks to them. "People tell me, 'You helped me ask questions of my doctor.' " Soon the whole world may be coming to him for advice. Did somebody say www.drhock.com? @ART CAPTION:Leonard Hock @ART:Photo (color) >>> CORRECTION: Leonard Hock was incorrectly identified in an April 24 FYI story. He is a D.O., or doctor of osteopathic medicine.