Whenever I answer a question about prevention in my specialty, I always caution everyone to take this message away from a meeting like this. Tell everybody you meet not to put Q-tips in their ears. Prevention is a very big thing in our area, with regard to injury to the ears.
In terms of prevention in our area, in surgery they have to have good quality primary care. That's what's missing in a lot of communities. In our community, 30% of people didn't have a family doctor 10 years ago. If you don't have a family doctor, then you don't have that initial gatepost into the health care system. You don't have that person to tell you to lose weight or to monitor your cholesterol.
That's what I would say to all levels of government. We have to make sure we have a family doctor for every patient in the country, or the equivalent, in terms of nurse practitioners and primary caregivers.