Our Mission & Philosophy
Family Medicine - Charlottesville Preventive Care Medical Clinic
We are a Charlottesville family medical clinic specializing in preventive medicine and comprehensive family medical care.
Healthy Habits
We believe the best medicine is a healthy lifestyle. Positive health habits, such as good nutrition, exercise, stress management, and appropriate periodic screening can reduce your risk of disease and enhance the quality of your life. Remember, "The most important thing you can save for your old age is you."
Nutrition
Poor nutrition is a major contributing factor in many diseases, including cancer, heart disease and high blood pressure. We encourage you and your family to cultivate healthy diets. When conditions such as high cholesterol or diabetes arise, we hope to work with you by suggesting dietary and lifestyle changes that may reduce or eliminate the need for medicine. We consult nutritionists for dietary counseling. They can assist you with special needs (weight reduction, low salt, gluten free diet, etc.).
Exercise
Exercise may increase lifespan, but more importantly, it is a key to feeling well. We recommend daily aerobic workouts with stretching and biweekly resistance exercises. We utilize the resources of the community to help you achieve your exercise goals.
Stress Management
Excessive stress contributes significantly to disease and detracts from the quality of our lives. Stress takes many forms. Physically, stress can cause headaches, backaches and hypertension. Emotionally, stress can cause sleep problems, anxiety, irritability, and fatigue. Mentally, stress can lead to poor concentration and forgetfulness. We encourage you to develop a variety of skills that control the mental and physical manifestations of stress. By discovering early signals of stress, we learn to respond to them with greater calm.
Periodic Screening
We encourage you to visit us for appropriate periodic screening, which may include a complete history (to establish a baseline), or interval medical history, physical examination and appropriate testing, such as blood work or mammograms. An easy way to remind yourself to review the need for this visit is to include it in your birthday events.
Our Commitment To You
Our commitment to you is to promote health, reduce suffering and help optimize your performance; the preventive care model described above is the best way to achieve these goals.
We Encourage You To Be Involved
We consider your wisdom, experience and participation essential in optimizing your health and well being.