Carolyn
Kevin Thomas, MD: Your sister’s situation brings up several important issues. Your sister seems to have a lot of trust and faith in her general practitioner which is an important part of her health care. Individuals who have that type of relationship with their physician tend to be more compliant with their medications and adherent to a healthy lifestyle. This is only helpful if her general practitioner is treating her appropriately and telling her the right things to do. With hypertension and borderline diabetes, her general practitioner should be capable of managing these diseases. A specialist is not always needed in these circumstances. Given that she has these risk factors it may be reasonable to refer her to a cardiologist for a cardiac work up if she is having symptoms or is at an increased risk of significant coronary disease based or her risk profile which her GP should be able to discern. If she is not following the recommendations of her GP I think it is unlikely a specialist would be more successful.
Date: 11 Aug 2008
Given in this interview: The Disparity of Care in SCA
