Partner with your primary care physician on a plan to maximize your wellness.
It’s common for people to think they need to see a doctor only when they’re sick. Primary care physicians (PCPs) see their role in maintaining your health very differently.
“Preventing a problem before it happens is a key goal of primary care,” says Kerollos Askander, MD, a primary care physician affiliated with Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus and a member of RWJBarnabas Health Medical Group.
A prevention-oriented perspective holds that regular checkups with your PCP are important even if you feel well. One reason is that seeing your doctor before you develop a health challenge helps establish a baseline so your PCP can more readily spot changes that may flag a problem early, Dr. Askander says.
Primary care becomes an active process in which you and your doctor team up as partners to keep you as healthy as possible. Dr. Askander points to a number of key elements in your game plan.
Get Screened
“I spend most of my time talking about screenings,” Dr. Askander says. Tests can proactively identify significant health issues, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and high cholesterol, among others.
“This allows for timely interventions, which can enhance treatment outcomes by addressing conditions when they’re easier to manage,” Dr. Askander says.
New research sometimes prompts changes to guidelines about who should get specific screenings and when, Dr. Askander says. Your PCP can walk you through all options—including the possibility of noninvasive alternatives to colonoscopies, for example—and guide you through results afterward.
See Your Doctor Regularly
Routine conversations not only help a PCP flag potential problems early but also can help motivate patients to keep up on recommended screenings. When Dr. Askander told a patient that his own mother got a mammogram despite being hesitant, the patient also overcame her reluctance and got the test—which led to early detection of breast cancer and an excellent prognosis after treatment.
Address Risk Factors
Talk with your PCP about modifiable risk factors that can be altered through lifestyle changes as well as nonmodifiable factors that can’t be changed, such as family history and age. Addressing both can help mitigate risks and potentially severe complications.
Be Proactive
Three key active measures that primary care doctors emphasize are staying up to date on immunizations, eating a well-balanced diet and being physically active. “No matter what your risk factor is or how healthy or unhealthy you are, exercise is almost always helpful,” says Dr. Askander. He recommends that patients set an initial goal of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week.
Develop a Plan
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to wellness, but PCPs strive to meet patients where they are and come up with an achievable plan for improving health, Dr. Askander says: “We need to have a specific discussion tailored for each patient.”
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