Family Physician Ada Stewart, MD: Make Prevention the Priority in Cervical Cancer Screening

September is Gynecologic Cancer Awareness Month, a timely reminder of the central role primary care plays in prevention and early detection. In a recent interview with Patient Care®, Ada Stewart, MD, a board-certified family physician and past president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, underscored the importance of ensuring that every eligible woman is up to date with cervical cancer screening.

In the video above, Dr Stewart shares practical insights from her own practice, emphasizing that every patient encounter is an opportunity to check screening status, provide follow-up, and reinforce prevention as a top priority. For many patients, family physicians are their only source of health care, making it essential that primary care clinicians lead efforts to close gaps in cervical cancer screening.

Patient Care: With Gynecologic Cancer Awareness Month underway, what are the most important steps physicians can take to improve cervical cancer screening and follow-through?

Stewart: The biggest thing is making sure that everyone gets screened—every female who is eligible for screening. Last Friday was what I call my Pap smear day, and that’s all I did. The whole day was dedicated to ensuring that everyone who was eligible and due for their Pap smear got it done. And of course, I did co-testing on everyone, and it was a success.

This is a time for us to ensure that every eligible patient who is due for a Pap smear gets it done, and it takes every visit to check on their screening. We are all about prevention as primary care clinicians, as family docs. For many of our patients, we are their only source of health care, so it is imperative for us as family medicine physicians and primary care doctors to ensure that prevention is number one.