“I want to make sure my patients—whether they’re 4 or 94—are enjoying themselves and enjoying their families.”
My name is Luis Fong. I’m a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I have my doctorate degree. I care a lot about my patients.
It’s the reason that I’m in this field is because I want to make sure that my patients, whether they’re four or 94, are enjoying themselves, enjoying their families.
Some of the challenges that I’m seeing today are with regard to medication adherence, mostly having patients take their medication and also having patients not experience side effects. The adherence to medication is going to depend on several factors.
One of them is how much relief are we getting for the symptoms? And then secondly, what’s the trade off? Is there going to be any side effects with the medication or any adverse reaction? So, convincing them a lot of the time has to do with presenting the patient options.
GeneSight factors into these conversations in a multitude of ways.
Sometimes if I have a patient that has been on multiple medications in the past and has experienced side effects, letting them know that there is a test that’s available to help me make a better medication decision.
A lot of the times, being able to let them know that there’s a tool available that’s going to narrow the playing field so that we don’t have as much trial and error as they’ve experienced.
It’s going to be a great thing, a great selling point for them. I believe that the information provided by the GeneSight test results definitely empowers both the patient and the provider. I don’t think a physician or provider needs to be an expert on genetics to use a test successfully.
A lot of the information provided by the GeneSight company is going to be very well explained. And the best part about it is that there’s also a liaison that can go over test results in case we ever get stuck.
And I feel that with the GeneSight, it has definitely helped empower my patients and helps improve their confidence in our medication treatment as well.
This story is one clinician’s personal experience. Other experiences may vary.
As with all genetic tests, the GeneSight test results have limitations and do not constitute medical advice. The test results are designed to be just one part of a larger, complete patient assessment, which would include proper diagnosis and consideration of medical history, other medications being taken, family history, and other factors.
If you are a healthcare provider and interested in learning more about the GeneSight test, please contact us at 855.891.9415. If you are a patient, please talk with your doctor to see if the GeneSight test may be helpful.
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