I am using Microsoft Semantic Kernel and trying to retrieve data from my local database. I am using Ollama3.2 as my LLM.

In order to retrieve patient data, I have the following code:

[Description("Get all patient data")]
public async Task<string> GetAllPatientData()
{
    var list = await DataService.GetAllPatientsAsync();
    Console.WriteLine("Retrieving all patient information...");

    if (list == null || !list.Any())
        return string.Empty;

    var stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
    bool isFirstPatient = true;

    foreach (var patient in list)
    {
        // Add a period separator between patient records (except for the first one)
        if (!isFirstPatient)
        {
            stringBuilder.Append('.');
        }
        else
        {
            isFirstPatient = false;
        }

        // Append patient data fields separated by semicolons
        stringBuilder.Append(patient.PatientId.ToString());
        stringBuilder.Append(';');
        stringBuilder.Append(patient.GetPatientName());
        stringBuilder.Append(';');
        stringBuilder.Append(patient.DOB.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd"));
        stringBuilder.Append(';');
        stringBuilder.Append(patient.Gender);
        stringBuilder.Append(';');
        stringBuilder.Append(patient.Phone);
        stringBuilder.Append(';');
        stringBuilder.Append(patient.Email);
        // Add any other patient fields you want to include
    }

    return stringBuilder.ToString();
}

This code works perfectly and I am able to query my database and ask questions like name of patients etc.

My question is, if I return List<Patient> instead of the string that I have built separating each field by a ;, should that work? Apparently the string approach works but returning a List of Patients type does not. And I have not found any answer to this in the docs.

Appreciate any help on this and how should such functions be implemented.