Preventive Care
How to Prepare for Your Annual Physical Exam
Your annual physical is the most valuable hour you can spend on your health — yet most patients show up without their medication list, unable to recall when their last tetanus shot was, and unsure what questions they actually want answered. A little preparation beforehand transforms a routine appointment into a genuinely useful conversation with your doctor.
Start by gathering your medication list. Write down every prescription drug, over-the-counter medication, vitamin, and supplement you take, along with the dose and how often you take it. Bring the bottles if you're unsure of the names. Medication reconciliation is one of the most important things we do at a physical — dosing errors and dangerous interactions are far more common than most patients realize, and we can only catch them if we know what you're actually taking.
Review your family history before you come in, especially for any first-degree relatives (parents, siblings, children). New diagnoses in close family members — a parent newly diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, a sibling who had a heart attack before 60 — change your own screening schedule. These are things we should know about at your visit, not months later.
Write down your questions in advance. It sounds simple, but patients consistently forget the things they meant to ask once they're sitting on the exam table. Keep a running list on your phone throughout the year and bring it with you. There's no such thing as a question too small to ask your primary care doctor.
Fast for at least eight hours before your appointment if your visit includes bloodwork. Water is fine. Coffee with cream or sugar is not. If you've already eaten and we need fasting labs, we'll have to reschedule that piece — which means an extra trip to the lab. Check with our office when you schedule to confirm whether fasting labs are planned for your visit.
Finally, be honest. Your physical is not a test you pass or fail by having perfect numbers. We are not here to judge you for smoking, for having gained weight, for drinking more than you'd like, or for not exercising as much as you know you should. We need accurate information to give you useful guidance. The more honest you are with us, the more useful we can be to you.
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