Welcome to the American Family Physician Podcast, Bonus Episode 9. Our podcast is hosted by the

residents and faculty of the University of Arizona College of Medicine, Phoenix.

I'm Steve, and we're very happy to have a special guest today.

Hello, everyone. Hi, Steve. I'm Kara Walker, Cabinet Secretary of Health and Social Services

for the state of Delaware and a proud family physician. Very good. So tell us as the cabinet secretary directing health and social services.

What is the scope of your role?

I'm very fortunate to oversee the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services and work for

Governor Carney.

We have a consolidated health and social service agency that includes not only health, but also

a range of other services for Delawareans, including disabilities, aging services, Medicaid,

public health, our state social service system. We work very closely with

animal welfare and other specific constituencies in Delaware and very fortunate to work on a

range of issues from making sure that people have the social services that they need,

but also programs to keep them in their communities,

healthy and living self-sufficiently. So we're a very unique statewide agency. In Delaware, because

we're small, it's about a million people up and down the state. We don't have kind of county

health departments. And so in my view, it's a very unique way for me to think about social

determinants of health and how, as a family physician, the entire state is really my patient.

Right. So what are your priorities and the most important parts of your job now in 2019?

So Governor Carney laid out a statewide action plan for Delaware and gave me some pretty

directive priorities for the department.

We work very diligently on addressing the opioid crisis in our state.

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