How to Talk with Your Doctor

More waiting rooms are filled these days with highly informed medical consumers seeking to partner with their doctors. They want to explore all promising treatments, both mainstream and alternative. To physicians, these patients seem needy and demanding. They expect a lot of attention, but are all too quick to question authority and battle doctors for control of their medical treatment. To patients, though, physicians can come off as stodgy, even arrogant. Many patients neglect to mention the alternative treatments they are using for fear of disapproval. Some walk away entirely from mainstream medicine. The unfortunate pattern in each case is the same: miscommunication and missed opportunities. Patients do not receive the best care available to them, and doctor-patient relationships fall far short of the caring and mutually satisfying exchanges they could be. How to Talk with Your Doctor is a book for patients and doctors alike. It arms patients with the tools and knowledge they need to communicate better wit