Cara Santamaria

Are you taking it as prescribed?

It's another thing to do a deep dive.

And at the hospital where I work in the gerontology department, we have a polypharmacy clinic.

Yeah.

And it's run by pharmacists, not physicians.

And so these are experts in the drugs themselves.

There are physicians in the clinic as well that collaborate with them.

But we have these incredible pharmacists whose whole job it is to really review this.

And as you mentioned, Steve, you're right.

It's 100% historically been the role of primary care.

But I see so often in my practice...

That an individual will go to their oncologist and their oncologist will flag things and they'll say, why, you know, why didn't your primary care do a B12 test or why is your primary care physician have you on this?

And they're like, I go to this clinic.

I feel like I get a new primary care doctor every year.

You know, my primary care doctor was a fellow and they moved on to another place.

It's unfortunate, but there are these kind of large clinics, especially in urban areas where there's a lot of rotation and we just don't get that kind of, I see the same family doctor I've always seen mentality anymore.

And should have consulted with you.

They should have consulted with me, absolutely.

And that's why, you know, I found a patient forward, uh, educational sheet from the NIH, which I absolutely loved.

And they, they have a section that says, ask your doctor about screening tests.