Susanna I. Chou, MD, PHD - Family Practice Physician

Today's healthcare system strives to enable you, the patient, by giving you choices. Unfortunately, the choices often make your health care more confusing than ever. As a "primary care physcian", I am the "gateway" to your medical care. Choosing a primary care physician is more than just about whether or not you like your physician. Their experience, training, and education are an important consideration.

A Family Practice (FP) physician is different from a General Practice (GP) physican. General Practioners are licensed physicians but do not attend a medical specialty residency and are not board certified.

In addition to a four-year medical school, a Family Practice physician must complete a three-year family practice specialty residency, pass a written exam every six or seven years, and maintain 300 hours of continuing medical education prior to recertification.

To find out more details about the benefits of care provided by a Board Certified Family Medicine Physician, you can read this brochure published by the American Board of Family Medicine. (Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader).

What is Family Practice?

Local Hospitals

Here is information on Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center's web site.

This is Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista's web site.

Handouts and Brochures

For patient information on the Mirena IUD you can visit the following web site: http://www.mirena-us.com/index.jsp . You can download their brochure "Keep Life Simple". (Requires Adobe Acrobat.)

Useful Information on the Web

The CDC and the American Cancer Society provide useful information about Breast Cancer. October is National Breast Cancer Awarenes Month.

http://www.familydoctor.org contains general medical information on various diseases and conditions.

http://mypyramid.gov and http://www.4woman.gov/faq/diet.htm are two government web sites with healthy eating information.

http://www.aaaai.org/patients.stm is the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology's web site which contains asthma information and resources.

http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/ is the National Institute of Health's (NIH) diabetes information and resources.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/hbp/

is the NIH's information about high blood pressure.

Making medical decisions is difficult, but having to make a decision for a loved one who isn't able to make that decision for him or herself is even harder. Having an Advanced Directive clearly documents your wishes so your family doesn't have to make those difficult decisions later..