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Helen Dandurand:
Welcome back to the Well Within Reach Podcast. I'm your host, Helen Dandurand.
And today, I'm going to be joined by Dr. Niby Mathew, family medicine provider
at Riverside's Frankfort Campus, to talk about primary care.

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Helen Dandurand: And
we're back with Dr. Mathew. Thank you for joining me today. We're glad to have
you.

Dr. Niby Mathew:
Thank you. Great to be here.

Helen Dandurand: So,
can you tell us a little bit about your background?

Dr. Niby Mathew:
Sure. Well, I was born and raised in New York. And in about 2006, I moved to
Chicago for medical training. After about three years, my plans were to go back
to New York. However, I was offered a great teaching opportunity in the city
and decided to stay in Chicago shortly after I met my husband who's born and bred
in the south side of Chicago, and that's how Chicago became my home.

Helen Dandurand:
You're here now.

Dr. Niby Mathew:
Yeah, we live here now. We've been in the city for several years now. After
having our boys, we decided to move to the Southwest suburbs just because the
schools out here are better and we thought this would be best for our kids. So,
here I am. And then, I was fortunate to find Riverside and joined on in August
of '22.

Helen Dandurand:
Well, that's awesome. We're so happy to have you here at Riverside.

Dr. Niby Mathew:
Thank you.

Helen Dandurand: All
right. So, we're talking today about primary care. Can you tell us what is a
primary care provider?

Dr. Niby Mathew:
Yeah. That's a good question. So, primary care provider or you might see it or
hear it as PCP is basically like the first contact an individual has with the
healthcare system. I think a good way, a good analogy is they're basically like
a healthcare manager. So, the goal of a primary care provider is to help an
individual live a healthier life and promote better health.

Helen Dandurand:
That's awesome. So, there are different kinds though, right?

Dr. Niby Mathew: Yes,
there are. So, the primary care providers fall under family medicine doctors.
There's also internists, pediatricians, and then there are obstetrics and
gynecology, basically OB-GYNs. So, the family medicine doctors, the unique
benefit is that we can care for your whole family. We see babies, children,
parents and grandparents. No matter who is sick in your family, you have one
person to call who knows your family history and can provide highly
personalized care.

Internists, they are trained to treat both simple and complex
conditions from early adulthood through old age, so they don't see children.
Whereas pediatricians specialize only in caring for children from birth through
early adulthood. And then, there are OB-GYNs, which a lot of people don't think
about as being a primary care provider, but they are. And they're experts
basically in women's health, specifically female reproductive health.

Helen Dandurand:
Awesome. That's great to know just what each one is. I think sometimes you hear
things like internal medicine and you're like, "I don't know what the
difference is there. I just know I go to the doctor." So, that's awesome.
So, why do you think that it is important for people to have a primary care
provider?

Dr. Niby Mathew:
Yeah. So as I mentioned before, this person is your first contact within the
healthcare system. It's basically your point person for health and wellbeing.
You would come to someone like me for common illness, like a common cold, sore
throat, leg pain. I would also be able to help you manage chronic conditions
like asthma, COPD, blood pressure. We also would provide preventive care. So, this
is when you come in for your annual physical and we basically go through all of
the preventive and screening measures that are based on age and individual's
family history. And then, we can also help with early detection with illnesses
or certain conditions like cancer. In some situations, you may need to see a
medical specialist. So, this is an expert on a specific area of the body. And
at times, we would give you information on who to see for that. But you know,
overall, research shows that having access to a primary care provider directly
favors and impacts good health and wellness outcomes. And if you need more
specialized care, as I was saying before, a certain health condition, we would
guide you to your next steps and connect you with the right specialist.

Helen Dandurand:
That's awesome. So, it's really just a home base, the person that you go to
when you need to know, "Where do I go next? What do I need? Do I just need
medicine? Do I need to be referred? What's going on?"

Dr. Niby Mathew: Yes.
The goal is we want to identify health issues earlier. We want to keep you
healthier, happier, and try to save you on money for medical expenses. You
know, we don't want to exhaust the ER staff as well as urgent care facilities
if possible.

Helen Dandurand:
Yeah. So, what would you say to younger people who are like, "I'm not sick
often. I don't really need a primary care provider"? What would you say
about that?

Dr. Niby Mathew: I
think I get that question every day or that comment every day. It's important
to start this early detection screening earlier on because we're trying to be
proactive, so we want to detect disease before it sets in. And it also allows
an individual to take on responsibility for their medical health. I think it's
horrific when a patient does come in and they have advanced disease and we know
that it could have been avoided if they started a screening or even just seeing
a regular doctor from right after college. I think that would be best. And
hopefully, in the younger population, parents are usually more responsible for
bringing a child in for their annual physicals, sports physicals, things like
that.

Helen Dandurand:
Right. Of course, that totally makes sense. We're going to take a quick break
to talk about finding a primary care provider.

Riverside knows that health is your greatest asset and that
your primary care provider is your partner in health. Find a primary care
provider that fits your needs at riversidehealthcare.org/primarycare.

All right. And we're back. So, what would you say is your
favorite thing about being a primary care provider?

Dr. Niby Mathew: My
favorite thing about being a family practitioner in primary care is developing
these relationships, the bond within a family. I love being that one trusted
source for an entire family's healthcare needs. I love communicating with
patients of all ages, from toddlers to elderly. And I also love the
versatility. I mean, I get to treat the common cold to chronic conditions and
even performing minor procedures like IUD insertions, joint injections, skin
biopsies. And you know, as a full-time physician and mom with limited time, I
love that I can take care of multiple family appointments on the same day. So,
that's why I chose to be a family practitioner in primary care.

Helen Dandurand: Wow.
So, what things would you tell people to keep in mind when they're choosing
their primary care provider?

Dr. Niby Mathew:
Yeah, I think this is a very individualized answer. So, I think it really
depends on what you want from your doctor. I mean, I think in theory you want
to find someone that you can form a connection with, that you can trust. I
think, you know, medicine can be scary, disease can be scary. And you want to
know that you can rely on someone. They're going to give you their honest truth
and treat you as if you were family. So, you want to feel comfortable with
them.

And also, I have a lot of patients that they tell me that
they're afraid to express their concerns and fears because of judgment or some
comment that I might say. But that's really important, you want to be able to
make the patient feel comfortable and tell them like, "Hey, listen, you
know, your concerns and fears and thoughts, they are important to me and let's
work together as a team and figure out what we can do to move forward."

You also want to find a primary care doctor that's experienced
and has in-depth knowledge. You can rely on them. They're using evidence-based
medicine. They're up-to-date with all of the medical journals and data. You
also want to find a doctor whose location and office hours are convenient.

Lastly, we don't think about this. But a reliable office staff,
that's really important. You want to make sure that you can connect and talk to
the nurses and the front desk and receptionists because they play a key role
within the medical team.

Helen Dandurand:
Yeah. You want your whole team and experience to be with it and to know what's
happening and for things to go smoothly. And then on top of that, like you
said, someone that you can talk to as your provider and that experience and
that knowledge. That's great. How can people go about finding the right
Riverside Medical Group primary care provider for them?

Dr. Niby Mathew:
Yeah. So, you can go to riversidehealthcare.org/primarycare and find a
provider. You can look through their provider profiles and each profile does
have a video to get to know the providers along with clinical interests,
specialties, and bios.

Helen Dandurand:
That's great. So, you can go in there and see who you might match up with, see
who might be a good fit for you. It is such an important choice to make. And
like you said before, even as a young person, if you don't feel like you need
to have that person, it's great to do the research now when you can and just
have that trusted source as a lifelong person. So, it's really great. Thank you
for being here today.

Dr. Niby Mathew:
Thank you.

Helen Dandurand: Yes.
And thank you, listeners, for tuning in to the Well Within Reach Podcast,
brought to you by Riverside Healthcare. For more information, visit
riversidehealthcare.org/primarycare.