The call came Tuesday. "We have an opportunity for you to do a TV interview, Dr. Ann!" How would YOU react to this call?
TV is pretty intimidating in my book. You often get one chance to say something, and now it lives on forever online. My first reaction was "Eek!", but the opportunity was really a fantastic one; what a great way to reach others with our mission! Our team works with each patient to take the very scary idea of heart disease and make it beatable and even preventable through managing important risk factors like high cholesterol. However, if you don't know that you have a risk of heart disease, or you aren't aware that there is help and support out there for you, we aren't fulfilling that mission. And raising awareness that this prevention starts in CHILDHOOD is a new message for many of us parents (and even practicing healthcare providers) and it is so crucial. Helping those families who are searching for that help in getting or staying healthy is a passion of ours. So, I needed to face my TV demon and go for it.
This was also an opportunity to say thank you to our local gem of a resource, Fox Valley Technical College's Venture Center. They helped me take the dream of opening my own preventive (lipids) medical practice and made it a reality. With their help (through a class called e-seed), I learned I could indeed take on the big, complex world of healthcare and simplify it down to what I think really matters - my patients. After many years of being a complex cholesterol specialist, it took starting over - from scratch - to build the right practice and team for today's healthcare world. It also took embracing new technologies, including new ways to "see" patients (telehealth, app prescriptions, messaging, and more). While we have so many more goals to achieve and more growth to realize, it already has been worth every twist and turn. Our customized approach is focused on helping you to get the answers you need and incorporate wellness and prevention into your life. Although I have been a complex lipids specialist for many years, working with the most severe forms of cholesterol problems, I finally feel like the genetic, lab and treatment advancements in the past ten years are finally giving our patients the fighting chance they deserve to win against heart and vascular diseases. How exciting to bring that all together!
So if that TV spot brought you here to our site and blog, welcome and thank you! Then it was worth getting past my "eek" moment! I am no TV phenom, but I believe our TEAM is pretty phenomenal at finding answers and solutions and we are excited to meet you!