Primary care teams discover benefits of improving family communication

It wasn’t medical knowledge or clinical acumen that ultimately helped Catherine M. White, M.D., FAAP, impact the life of a patient with special needs. It was her team’s commitment to building a relationship with the child’s mother, so they could determine why the family was missing the specialist appointments critical to the child’s care.

“It’s always that elephant in the room … that we didn’t realize there was food insecurity or that someone vital in the child’s life had died,” Dr. White said.