Internationally Recognized Family Physician and Family Medicine Educator
Dr. Larimore retired from direct patient care in December 2021 after serving 40 years as a family physician and delivering over 1,500 babies. During his career, Dr. Larimore was listed in Distinguished Physicians of America, The Best Doctors in America, Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in Medicine and Healthcare, Who’s Who in Science and Engineering, International Health Professionals of the Year, and International Health Scientists of the Year. In addition, Dr. Larimore has been listed in the Guide to America’s Top Family Doctors, America’s Registry of Outstanding Professionals, and The 2000 Intellectuals of the 21st Century.
In 2019 Dr. Larimore was named a 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient of Marquis Who’s Who in America. Less than 5% of Marquis Who’s Who listees are selected for this singular honor. In 1996, Dr. Larimore was named America’s Outstanding Family Physician Educator (Thomas W. Johnson Award) by the American Academy of Family Physicians and in 1999, he and his wife, Barb, were named National Educators of the Year by the Christian Medical Association.
Dr. Larimore was listed as an inaugural member of the Leading Educators of the World (in the field of family medicine), by the International Biographical Centre of Cambridge, England. He also was a visiting professor at the In His Image Family Medicine Residency Program in Tulsa and served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Colorado Family Medicine Program in Denver.
From 2017 until 2021, Dr. Larimore has served as an Occupational Medicine Physician with UCHealth in Colorado Springs. He held a similar position with Concentra in Colorado Springs from 2012 to 2017. He and his wife co-served at Mission Medical Clinic from 2005 to 2012, where Dr. Larimore served as Medical Director from 2008 until 2012. He was honored to serve as Vice President and Physician in Residence at Focus on the Family from 2001 through 2004.
Prior to moving to Colorado in 2001, Dr. Larimore practiced family medicine in Kissimmee, Florida for 16 years. During this time, he served on the adjunct faculty for four medical schools in Florida and also served over a decade as a volunteer physician for the U.S. Olympic Committee and the Great Florida Shootout Basketball Tournament Hall, being named to their Hall of Fame.
From 1981 to 1985, Dr. Larimore practiced in the small town of Bryson City in the rural Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. He served on the adjunct faculty of the AHEC Family Medicine Residency Program in Asheville.
Dr. Larimore completed his Residency in Family Medicine at Duke University Medical Center in 1981, where he was awarded a Southern Medical Association Resident's Study Award and was a Mead Johnson Awardee as one of the 12 “Most outstanding Family Practice Residents” in America. He completed a General Practice Teaching Fellowship at Queen’s Hospital in Nottingham, England in 1978. His M.D. degree from Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans in 1977 with Alpha Omega Alpha National Medical Honor Society honors and was awarded a C.V. Mosby Scholastic Achievement Award as one of the top five graduates in his class.
Dr. Larimore’s B.S. degree from Louisiana State University in 1974 where he received the Freshman Honors Award, a Centennial Honors Award, and the Arts and Sciences Outstanding Student Award. He was also inducted into Phi Eta Sigma Honorary Society, Alpha Epsilon Delta National Premedical Honor Society, and Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society.
Dr. Larimore is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians (FAAFP), was Board Certified and re-certified (five times) by the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM), and was also awarded the Certificate of Added Qualification in Sports Medicine by the ABFM. Since 2017 he has been Board Certified in Family Medicine by the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons.
Dr. Larimore and his childhood sweetheart, Barb, live in Colorado, have been married for almost 50 years, and have two adult children and two beautiful granddaughters.
Best-Selling and Award-Winning Author
Dr. Larimore is a prolific author and has written, co-written, or edited forty-one books, thirty medical textbook chapters, and over 1,200 articles in a variety of medical journals and lay magazines.
His most recent book, which took almost 16 years to research and write, is about his father, Philip B. Larimore’s exploits and heroism in World War II. At First Light: A True World War II Story of a Hero, His Bravery, and an Amazing Horse has received more awards (International Page Turner Finalist Non-Fiction Book of the Year in 2023, as well as the Page Turner Golden Author Award and Best Book in the Genre of True Stories in 2023. Also in 2023, the book was featured at the Louisiana Book Festival. The book was also awarded a Silver Medal [Memoir/Biography] in 2022 from the Military Writers Association of America. Also in 2023, At First Light and Dr. Larimore's research led to his father being posthumously inducted into the Army's 3rd Infantry Division's Marne Hall of Fame (along with General George C. Marshall, President and General Dwight D. Eisenhower) and to General David Petraeus nominating Phil Larimore to the Army's Officer Candidate School (OCS) Hall of Fame. Finally, an exhibit honoring Phil Larimore opened at the LSU Military Museum in Baton Rouge.
Other recent health books include The Natural Medicines Handbook: The Truth about the Most Effective Herbs, Vitamins, and Supplements for Common Conditions and Fit over 50: Make Simple Choices for a Healthier, Happier You.
His best-selling books, about his first years in practice as a family physician in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, include Bryson City Tales, Bryson City Seasons, and Bryson City Secrets. More recently he has completed two books about his years of practice in Kissimmee, Florida: The Best Medicine: Tales of Humor and Hope from a Small-Town Doctor and The Best Gift: Tales of a Small-Town Doctor Learning Life’s Greatest Lessons.
In 2024, Dr. Larimore began an-almost-daily blog at DrWalt.com that will look back 80 years to the day to see where his father and the men with whom he fought were each day during the last year and a half of WWII.
Other best-selling books include Lintball Leo’s Not-So-Stupid Questions About Your Body, and Alternative Medicine: The Christian Handbook. He was the primary author of Florida Hospital’s SuperSized Kids: How to protect your child from the obesity threat which was an Amazon.com #1 bestseller in several categories, as was The Best Medicine.
Larimore’s books have garnered a number of national awards, including three Gold Medallion Award nominations, three Silver Medallion Awards, a Retailer’s Choice Award, and a Book of the Year Award from ECPA. As mentioned above, national and international writing awards were presented to At First Light: A True World War II Story of a Hero, His Bravery, and an Amazing Horse. His books have been translated into 16 foreign languages.
Dr. Larimore currently posts a blog (www.DrWalt.com), for which he has posted over 5000 articles. Since 2007, he has written a health column, Ask Dr. Walt, for Today’s Christian Living magazine and a quarterly Medical News You Can Use column for the Colorado Family Physician journal.
Dr. Larimore co-wrote, with Barb, his childhood sweetheart, and wife, His Brain, Her Brain: How divinely designed differences can strengthen your marriage. He also wrote the health chapter for Coach Joe Gibb’s best-selling book Game Plan for Life.
One of Dr. Larimore’s most popular health books is 10 Essentials of Happy, Healthy People. He’s also written three books for children going through puberty (and their parents): Lintball Leo’s Not-So-Stupid Questions About Your Body; The Ultimate Guys’ Body Book: Not-so-stupid questions about your body; and The Ultimate Girls’ Body Book: Not-so-stupid questions about your body.
Dr. Larimore has published four novels. The first two, The Gabon Virus and The Influenza Bomb, were co-written with his dear friend Paul McCusker. His two solo novels are historical fiction about the Great Smoky Mountains in the 1920s, Hazel Creek, and its sequel, Sugar Fork.
Dr. Larimore wrote the introductions to two books: a devotional, Walking with Jesus in Healthcare, and a book on nutrition, Alive! A Physician’s Biblical and Scientific Guide to Nutrition. He was also featured in Miracles & Moments of Grace: Inspiring Stories from Doctors.
Dr. Larimore was the General Editor for Updates in Maternity Care (2000) and served as a contributing author for the Mayo Clinic’s Complete Book of Pregnancy and Baby’s First Year, Focus on the Family’s Complete Book of Baby and Child Care, and Focus on the Family’s Caring for Your Aging Loved Ones.
Dr. Larimore’s thirty medical textbook chapters have been on topics ranging from maternity care, prenatal care, sports injuries, endoscopy, rural health economics, and ethics.
Dr. Larimore was a medical journalist from 1995 to 2022.
From 2021 to 2022, Dr. Larimore hosted over four seasons (41 episodes) of the weekly show, “Ask Dr. Walt,” on the Liftable TV Network. In 2022, he hosted LIftableTV’s “The Daily Apple: Medical News You and Your Family Can Use” and the weekly “The Inside Story: Conversations about the art and heart of writing” where he interviewed some of today’s most popular and successful Christian authors.
From 2001-2004, Dr. Larimore hosted the nationally syndicated Focus on Your Family’s Health. These 90-second daily news features were in as many as 75 radio and 37 TV markets across the U.S. Dr. Larimore also provided live on-air interviews to local TV affiliates and national cable TV outlets about breaking medical news.
From 2000 through 2012, Dr. Larimore served as an on-air Medical Consultant for many radio stations, including WDBO in Orlando; WMBI, Chicago; WISG, Indianapolis; KNKT, Albuquerque; WBCL, Ft. Wayne and the Indiana State Network; WOCL, Baltimore; Kim Jeffries’ Along the Way, Northwest Radio Network; KFSH, Los Angeles; WKES, Tampa, Lakeland, Orlando, FL; WSOR, Naples, Ft. Myers, Cape Coral, FL; WHGN, Crystal River, Inverness, Ocala, FL; WKZM, Sarasota, Bradenton, FL; Life Perspectives, American Family Radio; KTIS, Minneapolis; WRMB Boynton Beach, Okeechobee, Stuart, and Ft. Pierce, FL.
From 1995 through 2000, Dr. Larimore hosted 854 live prime-time daily episodes of the National Cable TV Show Ask the Family Doctor on The Health Network (aka America’s Health Network) and later Fox’s Health Network.
While with The Health Network, Dr. Larimore was awarded the prestigious “Gracie” Award in 2000 by the American Women in Radio and Television for his work on the program, “Mastectomy/Breast Reconstruction Webcast and Broadcast,” which was recognized for “Outstanding Collaboration between Broadcast and New Media.”
Besides hosting the show in-studio, he also performed investigative and fieldwork. At its peak, his show was available in over 28 million American homes. Joe Maddox, the past President and COO of America’s Health Network, said that Dr. Larimore had more “… actual on-air TV experience than any physician in the history of television.”
Dr. Larimore also hosted a medical news minute on The Health Network and the Apple a Day segment on The Health Network and later Discovery Health TV Network. On Ask the Family Doctor, Dr. Larimore hosted several of the nation’s first live televised medical procedures. He conceived and hosted the first worldwide live Internet and TV birth in June 1998 – a then-innovative approach to reality TV that was covered by most large media outlets. Of his hosting, the international edition of Time Magazine said, “Dr. Walt Larimore, a distinguished private physician conducted the exercise like a veteran 60 Minutes reporter.”
Dr. Larimore has appeared in interviews on NBC’s “The Today Show;” “CBS Good Morning;” “CNN Headline News;” CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” CNBC’s “The Abrams Report;” PBS’ “Family Works;” and several Fox News shows. He has also been interviewed on Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity’s shows.
Dr. Larimore has also served as a medical consultant for the Total Living Television Network, CCN (Christian Communications Network), HealthTeacher.com, and DiscoveryHealth.com.
As a family health and medical expert, Dr. Larimore has been sought for print interviews with dozens of newspapers: including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, LA Times, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Chicago Tribune, Washington Times, Orlando Sentinel, National Catholic Register, Malaysia Strait Times, South China Post, and the UPI – as well as national magazines including Redbook, In Touch Weekly, Life & Style, Significant Living, Today’s Christian Living, Home Life, Family Life, Stand Firm, First for Women, Today’s Christian Physician, My Family Doctor, AMA News, Family Practice News, and Pediatric News.
Dr. Larimore and his childhood sweetheart, Barb, have two adult children and two grandchildren. They reside in Colorado and have been married for almost 50 years