Meet Dr. Christine Thurston. She’s an internal medicine specialist at the St. Tammany Physicians Network clinic in Mandeville – and also the latest guest on our weekly radio segment on The Lake 94.7-FM, in which she explains why it’s important to establish a relationship with a primary care physician and then to see them regularly every year.
Click below or visit The Lake to hear her talk about her field of expertise. You can also find a transcript of her conversation with The Lake host Charles Dowdy below, lightly edited for length and clarity.
Charles: Dr. Christine Thurston is back. How are you?
Dr. Thurston: Well, thank you. How are you?
Charles: Good. We talked a year-ish ago, but just give me the background of who you are.
Dr. Thurston: I am a military brat, so I have lived all over the place. Lived in Mandeville, lived in New Orleans.
Charles: I know I asked you this last year: Your favorite place to live outside of Southeast Louisiana?
Dr. Thurston: That is rough because this is my favorite place.
Charles: I know!
Dr. Thurston: Maybe Annapolis, Maryland.
Charles: Beautiful city.
Dr. Thurston: Very pretty.
Charles: All right, go. Sorry I interrupted you.
Dr. Thurston: That is ok.
Charles: We have got to say hey to the girls.
Dr. Thurston: Well, girls and boys.
Charles: Ok, how many children do you have?
Dr. Thurston: I have three. One daughter, Charlotte; a son, Brook;, and my oldest, Jack. I wanted to say, “Good morning, babies. Make today awesome!”
Charles: Nice.
Dr. Thurston: I know, make it a great day.
Charles: So, three kids. I assume there is a guy around.
Dr. Thurston: Yes, my wonderful husband. Hey D! I know you are holding down the fort.
Charles: Good, and what does Easter look like for your family?
Dr. Thurston: You know, it is going to be a nice family-filled weekend. We do a lot of stuff with our family. My parents are in the area. My sister is in the area. So we will do a crawfish boil tomorrow, then we’ll have a bunch of family stuff going on over the weekend. I know the Easter Bunny will be visiting, so it should be good.
Charles: All right, that sounds like a whole bunch of fun. What type of doctor are you?
Dr. Thurston: Internal medicine. I do outpatient internal medicine at our Mandeville clinic, and it is wonderful.
Charles: How does someone come into contact with you, just in terms of the work that you do. Who are you seeing?
Dr. Thurston: So, I am seeing everybody ages eighteen and above. I am an outpatient doctor, but I am what patients would consider one of their primary care physicians. I would kind of be your first call, so I see you for your wellness visits, I see you for sick visits, I do prevention, chronic disease management and crisis management. So I want to see you for all of those things.
Charles: All right, so this has been a very friendly interview until now. Now I am about to make you mad. Are you ready?
Dr. Thurston: I’m OK. I think it will be OK.
Charles: No, I think you will be OK. But I don’t have a doctor.
Dr. Thurston: OK.
Charles: I am a 51-year-old male.
Dr. Thurston: OK.
Charles: My best friend is a doctor. So, I kind of think that has been a mistake.
Dr. Thurston: Yes, yes.
Charles: So, let’s talk about that. I want to make this about me for a second.
Dr. Thurston: OK.
Charles: What do I need to be looking at? I will say I have done the colonoscopy thing. I have got some esophagus stuff that goes on and that has all been fixed. So, I have seen a doctor recently. But as far as starting from scratch and that doctor saying blood pressure, these tests. So where are we starting? If I walk in, what are we doing?
Dr. Thurston: All right, so we always start with the vital signs. We want to make sure that your blood pressure, your heart rate, all of that is good and you are in a healthy range. Then, of course, weight is a big deal. We want to make sure you have a healthy Body Mass Index and that you are active. So, we will have conversations about physical activity, diet, all of those things. Then you really need yearly labs.
Those are important. You know we certainly want to check a lipid profile at your age. Really for most people.
Charles: OK, help me. A lipid profile? What does that mean?
Dr. Thurston: That is cholesterol; I am so sorry. Yes, we want to check your cholesterol because heart health is really, really important. So, we want to check your cholesterol. We want to make sure your electrolytes are normal, your kidneys are functioning, your liver looks good. We can do all these things with basic lab tests initially. Then if we have to do anything else, we can do imaging studies or additional labs. We want to make sure that your blood sugars are normal. You know, diabetes is a big thing that happens all throughout the United States, and especially here in Louisiana, so we are constantly making sure that patients are eating well, exercising and that their hemoglobin A1C is a healthy level.
Charles: I’m going to do the devil’s advocate thing: I feel good. Nothing is bothering me.
Dr. Thurston: I know, that’s what everybody says. You feel good until you don’t. But the thing is, too, it’s very important for us to do preventative medicine. That is my favorite type of medicine. That is how I was trained. You know you want to prevent chronic diseases. My goal as your physician is to allow you to live your best life as long as you can, and do it as well as you can, but if we have little hiccups in the road, we take care of those things.
So, the way to ensure we are doing the preventative stuff is come see me once a year. I tell patients, “Look, don’t ghost me. Come in at least once a year and see me. Let’s get those labs and let me at least take a listen to you.” That’s important. The physical exam is very important. You know I have patients that come in and see me and say, “Man, you listened to my heart and lungs. You looked in my ears. You checked my legs. You did all those things.” Yes, that is what you are supposed to do. They go, “Oh, I had a doctor that never did that.” I said, “Well, they don’t work for St. Tammany.”
Tim San Fillippo: And the great thing about these wellness visits. I can’t speak for every single insurance policy out there, but a lot of them cover that annual visit because they know preventative medicine is the key.
Dr. Thurston: It really is, and so it really is important. I am glad you mentioned colonoscopies. Because our colonoscopy, basically our guidelines have changed. Now we start screening people without any risk at age 45. That started in October of 2020, that recommendation, because we found we were really missing a lot of people age 45 to 50. So, I am glad you had that done.
Charles: I did, and I don’t want to go into the details, but … in my mind I am like, you know, “I went to the doctor.” Right? I mean, that guy I am pretty sure is a doctor.
Dr. Thurston: Sure!
Charles: So, I’m good right? No?
Dr. Thurston: Well, you know again.
Charles: I am not throwing stones at that doctor, but I guess the thought is he is thinking of other things. He is not necessarily checking everything under the hood.
Dr. Thurston: Right. You want someone, and this is what is beautiful about internists and family medicine doctors, the person you’re seeing on a regular basis, and what is so important about that relationship that we have is that we are looking at you head to toe. So, I am looking big picture. I am also looking at the individual things that need to be taken care of. We can get you to those specialists if you need to be seen. We are very lucky in our system that we have that ability. We have an amazing support with our specialists. But we really do have to make sure that everything is running OK under the hood.
Charles: Right.
Dr. Thurston: That includes mental health.
Charles: I meant to ask you about that.
Dr. Thurston: When I see my patients, I say, “Look, I need to make sure you are OK head to toe. That means your emotional health and your physical health -- because your emotional health, it really affects your physical health. So, we are doing our depression and anxiety screenings. We are making sure that things are going OK from both and emotional and physical standpoints. So, like I said, it is a great time to just make an appointment with your physician to do your annual wellness exam. Then this way we can really sit there and talk to you about everything and make sure that everything is going OK.
Charles: I would assume the first time you visit that case history and kind of where you have been is hugely important.
Dr. Thurston: Absolutely. Getting a good history. You know when you are in medical school, they teach you, you can learn basically 90% of what is going on with a patient if you let them talk uninterrupted for two minutes. And it is true. They will tell you what is going on and it will direct you exactly where you need to go with that.
Charles: Dr. Christine Thurston is here, and we are talking about the work she does for St. Tammany Health System. I have hogged the mike for a little bit, so we are going to talk about the other side of the equation, which is what?
Dr. Thurston: Women’s health.
Charles: You are going to have to handle that part.
Dr. Thurston: You know, everybody needs an annual wellness exam. Everybody. Women also need their mammograms. So, it’s a great time to be thinking about when was your last mammogram? We recommend those once a year if you are age 40 and above or if you are high risk. There are other people who are less than 40 who are getting mammograms and ultrasounds and things like that, so that’s very, very important.
In addition to your yearly women’s health exam with gynecology, a lot of patients will under 40 are seeing obstetrics, so we are doing that on a regular basis. But it is very important to make sure you are having the pap exam. Make sure you doing the HPV testing to help prevent types of cancer that we can prevent. So, come see us. Go see your friendly internist or family medicine doctor. Make sure you are seeing us at least once a year. We will take good care of you. It is important to establish that relationship.
Charles: And the process starts simply by just signing up for an appointment.
Dr. Thurston: Yes, a phone call (at 985-898-4000) or downloading the MyChart app.
Tim: And I just want to give everyone a website address if you want to learn more about our general practices. You can visit us at sttammany.health/stpn. We have numerous clinics throughout West St. Tammany. Besides Mandeville, where Dr. Thurston works, we also have Madisonville, Folsom and Covington. So, check us out. Get yourself taken care of.
Charles: Alright, well this has been a fun conversation. I hope you and your family have a fantastic Easter.
Dr. Thurston: Thank you. You, too.