Maggie McKay (Host): Welcome to Say Yes to Good Health, a podcast from Memorial Hospital. I'm your host, Maggie McKay. Joining us today is Dr. Chimdindu Emeka-Emeh, primary care physician, to discuss the role of primary care in early detection and prevention and how establishing care can help patient's stay proactive and avoid complications. Thank you so much for being here today.

Chimdindu Emeka-Emeh, MD: Thank you for having me.

Host: Of course. So, let's start with for listeners who may not have a primary care provider, how would you explain what primary care really is?

Chimdindu Emeka-Emeh, MD: So, I like to say primary care is like your maintenance guy, the guy that comes in or sees you, preferably before things go wrong and try to catch anything before they go wrong. But primary care is a guy that gets to see whatever the case may be that tries to like tie in everything, looks at you, understands you, and tie out all your past medical history and everything to see what they can do to make you have a better life.

Host: And what's the first step someone can take this week to be more proactive about their health?

Chimdindu Emeka-Emeh, MD: The first thing I would recommend would be making a routine visit. It's not only when you are sick or anything. It is regardless of how you feel, just to make a routine visit and get to see the doctor and get to talking, explaining. That way, he can see if he needs to do any labs or anything on you. But the first step would be to at least make that visit, and then see what goes from there.

Host: And what does it mean to establish care, and why is that so important?

Chimdindu Emeka-Emeh, MD: So, establishing care, to use an example, would be going into see the mechanic for instance, and explaining to him everything about your car and saying, you know, "I got this car this year. This is how long I've driven it for." The mechanic at that point can best understand the car.

So, same thing establishing care, it's all about going to see a doctor, and then telling him everything about yourself, up to date, and having him tie all these ends together to see what healthcare or what health needs you might need. So, typically, in an established care visit, you'll want to go through your social history, family history, your past medical history and everything, surgical history, And then, we decide based on all those information what you do need.

Host: I love the car analogy.

Chimdindu Emeka-Emeh, MD: Thank you.

Host: When should someone see their primary care provider instead of waiting it out or going straight to the ER?

Chimdindu Emeka-Emeh, MD: As I like to tell my patients, emergency care, just as the name says, is an emergency. So if it's something that is life-threatening or you feel like it's something new, there's something that's going on that you feel like it's life-threatening or you feel like chest pain, for example, the advanced age population, that would be something to at least get looked at.

Primary care is, at least I tell my patient's, "Call my clinic first," or "Let us know what's going on with you." And then, we can help you decide if you need to see, if you need to go into the emergency care, if you need to come in and have a quick visit with those," because that also helps cut cost and helps in general for the well-being of the patient.

Host: And realistically, how often should adults be seeing their primary care provider?

Chimdindu Emeka-Emeh, MD: In a typical healthy patient, once a year is good. It's almost like seeing the dentist twice a year, you see your primary care once a year. Now, depending on your past medical history or your or your history, you might be seen more frequently as twice a year or every quarterly. It depends on what you need basically.

Host: In closing, is there anything else you'd like to add that you'd like people to know about what you do and why it's important that they try to be, like we said earlier, proactive and prevent illness?

Chimdindu Emeka-Emeh, MD: What I would like people to understand about primary care and the stigma around it is that think about it like catching something ahead of time before it happens. It's the job or the role of the primary care doctor to make sure like things are caught ahead of time. And if that happens, in the long run, it also saves cost. People sometimes are worried about cost and way of living and all that stuff. And most insurance covers for at least an annual visit a year, which is usually covered. So, it's like a free way of getting maintenance check on your engine, which is the body.

Host: Thank you so much for sharing your expertise today. We really appreciate it.

Chimdindu Emeka-Emeh, MD: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Host: Of course. Again, that's Dr. Chimdindu Emeka-Emeh. To learn more, please visit mhtlc.org. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. Thanks for listening to Say Yes to Good Health.