BETA - Why is it important to have your primary care physician as part of your healthcare team?

Your primary care physician is more than just someone you see for a yearly checkup. They're your go-to partner for everyday health concerns. From preventive care to diagnosing and treating a variety of conditions, your PCP helps keep your overall health on track. In this Health Tree University lesson, you'll learn why having a trusted primary care doctor on your healthcare team is so important, especially when managing something as complex as my myeloma. Discover how they can help coordinate your care and keep the big picture in focus. Why is it important to have your primary care physician as part of your healthcare team? I think primary care physicians play a very vital role in modern day practice, regardless of which particular subspecialty or subspecialist the patient is seeing. Myeloma is a cancer or malignancy of the elderly and many of patients who when they present or get diagnosed with myeloma, they do have other medical conditions as well like hypertension, diabetes. Many of them need screening colonoscopies. Females need annual mammograms, breast exams, pap smears. So a lot of routine screening for healthcare conditions is actually still performed by primary care physicians. As myeloma doctors, we typically focus on the myeloma, its symptoms, its treatment and its side effects. And oftentimes, all the new advances that are happening in healthcare maintenance with other medical conditions like hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol levels, they are best addressed by our primary care physicians. We're a very vital team member for us as well when it comes to providing comprehensive care to patients with myeloma who are now living longer and longer. And as that happens, they are accumulating more medical conditions as a normal process of aging. When should I make an appointment to see my primary care physician as opposed to my myeloma specialist? I think that's a very good question and perhaps it's not always very easy or streamlined to actually direct the patient to a primary care physician when what you may be experiencing could be a chemotherapy or myeloma-related effect. But I do think at any point in time you have health conditions like hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol. Some of the common ailments or medical conditions that patients with myeloma have is better to seek care from your primary care physician. Oftentimes, in my practice, we direct the patients to for these conditions to their primary care physicians. Which health issues does your primary care doctor usually handle first? In general, as people have been fortunately living longer and longer with multiple myeloma, the other things that affect anyone as they age become an issue for these patients as well. And so it's important to have a primary care provider who can still make sure that your lipids are being checked, that your heart disease risk factors are being managed, that your blood pressure is under control, that your age-appropriate cancer screening is occurring, and all the other issues that a medical oncologist and hematologist may not immediately be thinking about for you but are still important for your overall health. For all those reasons, primary care providers are essential.