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Perhaps the most beneficial thing you can do when you or a loved one is faced with a medical problem is to saturate yourself with as much information as you can about that problem.

The reason for learning as much as you can about your medical condition is not to become a doctor yourself, but merely to become confident and comfortable discussing your medical condition with one. If you have a good basic understanding of your medical problems, your doctor will not be speaking Greek to you anymore, but a language you should be able to follow. (If you still can't understand what he's saying, that ought to be a clue that he may actually be talking nonsense, either because he doesn't understand this stuff himself or he's just a poor communicator. Either of these facts would be important for you to know about.) Furthermore, the questions that come to mind as you talk with your doctor will become more focused and pertinent.

Most importantly, you'll begin to notice if your doctor is just leaving things out. If you think he is, you can ask him - "Doc, what about that cardiac resynchronization therapy? I've read where it's supposed to really help a lot of people with heart failure." This will serve two purposes - it will force your doctor to discuss cardiac resynchronization therapy with you. And it will serve him notice that when you are the one sitting across the desk from him, he's not dealing with a novice. He's going to have to be sure he discusses all the options with this one. Becoming empowered by knowledge is not yet a particularly easy thing to do, but the payoff is tremendous.

Resources for self-empowerment

You can get your feet wet with the consumer-oriented health encyclopedias available at almost all public libraries and bookstores. You should also visit a few websites from trusted sources that provide high-quality medical information for patients.

The Internet has countless resources for any health condition you can name, but once you branch away from known and trusted sources, you're entering the Wild West. A lot of the stuff you'll find there is simply bizarre and wrong, and for this reason many experts have urged patients to avoid the Internet altogether, arguing that they're more likely to become confused, misled, or disturbed than enlightened. There is definitely a risk/benefit calculation that needs to be taken into account when using the Internet to get medical information, but if you're careful a lot of the crazy stuff is fairly easy to recognize.

I have provided a page of useful weblinks to get you started, here.

The reason for learning as much as you can about your medical condition is not to become a doctor yourself, but merely to become confident and comfortable discussing your medical condition with one. If you have a good basic understanding of your medical problems, your doctor will not be speaking Greek to you anymore, but a language you should be able to follow. (If you still can't understand what he's saying, that ought to be a clue that he may actually be talking nonsense, either because he doesn't understand this stuff himself or he's just a poor communicator. Either of these facts would be important for you to know about.) Furthermore, the questions that come to mind as you talk with your doctor will become more focused and pertinent.

Next: Managing your doctor