Emergency room doctors are modern day heroes as they save lives on a daily basis. TV shows often conceptualize the ER physician by the stressful decisions they make in an emergency. Can your regular humble family doctor save your life as well? It may not look as glamorous as on TV, but calculating your risk with your family doctor, then discussing lifestyle changes or treatment can certainly prevent that heart attack or stroke in the first place. 

Imagine you need to swim across an alligator infested river, and about 25% of people similar to you don’t escape the alligators. Of people who increase exercise, only 18% of them get bit (similar results for improved diet, smoking cessation, etc). Of people who take a recommended medication, only 15% of them get bit. Although you cannot reduce your risk to zero, it helps to combine these changes. 

If you have multiple risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes, tobacco/nicotine use, family history of heart or kidney disease, then your risk could be even higher than 25% of having a heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years. We all have to “swim” across this river called life, and there is always risk of bad things happening, but you can mitigate this risk with simple interventions. 

Emergency room doctors deserve all the credit they get, but don’t forget about how glamorous preventative medicine can be. We family doctors in the clinic may not be pumping on patient’s chests, putting tubes down throats, or doing emergency surgeries, but we do have good data to show how many of these life threatening problems we have prevented. This may not get the spotlight on entertainment media, but sitting down and having a conversation with your humble family doctor could save your life. 

This article is referencing the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease (ASCVD) 10-year risk calculator. 

Dr. Noble graduated summa cum laude with a medical laboratory science degree from Weber State University, and then earned his medical degree at Des Moines University. He completed his family medicine residency at Promedica Monroe Regional Hospital, where he served as chief resident. Dr. Noble also served two medical missions to Ghana while a student and a mission to Honduras as a physician.