Your Health is Primary!
Last year, the American Academy of Family Physicians launched a campaign called “Making Health Primary.” The goal was to encourage Americans to visit their Primary Physician for regular check ups and to establish with one if your health has been on the back burner. This may seem like a silly and obvious necessity to some, however many Americans, particularly young adults, may put off establishing with a primary physician until problems present. Although I’m just “cutting my teeth” in this profession, the longer I practice, the more I see the necessity and often underutilized services provided by primary care physicians.
Throughout medical school, as my classmates were finding their niche in various specialties: surgery, dermatology, ENT, I struggled to find my best fit. I had interests in a little bit of everything. No one service felt more “at home” than another and I could not see giving up one thing to focus on something solely. That is except, pathology-ha!. I am a bit of a nerd, I guess, and I enjoyed looking at slides under the microscope and learning about all of those crazy diseases. One thing kept me from pursuing that specialty and that is: relationships. This is the reason I went into primary care, particularly family medicine. Our health and our lives are like a story which is constantly unfolding. We do not exist in one moment in time, or one diagnosis in time. We are more than a sum of our parts. One chronic illness does not define who we are as humans. To me, a physician is meant to be a guide at times, a leader at other times, and ultimately a companion, walking with the patient through their disease processes.
At Crowley Primary Care, we strive to put the patient at the center of the care team. All the physicians work together along with our teams to help our patients navigate through whatever their current situation is. Long term relationships built on trust between the patient and physician are the foundation of good health. People who have access to comprehensive, coordinated and continuous care have documented better health outcomes. At Crowley Primary Care, our practice is unique in a rapidly changing healthcare environment. Where care has become increasingly fractured, we make it a priority to be primarily involved with our patients during their acute illnesses and injuries all the way to chronic illnesses or serious illnesses requiring inpatient admissions to hospitals.
In our practice, we make it a priority to be available for same-day appointments. We also have a physician on call 24/7 for emergencies. It is our goal to reduce unnecessary emergency room visits and to tackle things early on to hopefully avoid hospital admission. In the event that an illness is too severe to be treated in the out-patient setting, our physicians are well-equipped to follow you into the hospital. We feel that since we know you best, we are uniquely positioned to care for you in the most comprehensive way.
This year, make it a goal to make your health primary! If you are an established patient, we encourage you to have regular routine follow ups to maintain your chronic conditions and to stay on top of routine health maintenance and screening. If you have been putting off finding a doctor, call our office today.
--Claire Ronkartz, MD