Dr. La Follette knows when it comes to giving preventive health-care advice, it’s always important to consider a patient’s age and risk factors, including family history, environmental and work exposures, being from a certain ethnic group and already having a health condition. Today, patients are increasingly encouraged to form a strong, honest and communicative partnership with their health-care practitioner, one where both actively participate in the health-care process and collaboratively find the right solutions for the patient’s personal health. For example, all health-care providers agree that the most important preventable cause of premature death in the United States is smoking. Smoking is not an easy habit to stop, but studies show when patients ask their health-care practitioners for help and suggestions on ways to quit, their success rate dramatically increases.
