That's Fit

Having a good relationship with your doctor is so important. During the years following college, I bounced around from place to place. I don't know why, but after a year or so in one apartment, I always felt the need to move. Moving from city to city like I did, I never kept a consistent relationship with a doctor. Now that I'm older and -- dare I say -- settled in one place, I've been seeing the same doctor for seven years. I've learned to appreciate having a physician that knows me, my son, and both of our health histories.

If you're going to a new doctor, there are some questions that are good to ask. AOL Health has a slideshow with 10 questions you should ask your doctor. Some of the questions are:

• "Do I really need that test?" Sometimes doctors prescribe a test to be cautious, but it's not truly necessary. Talk tests over with your doctor and learn the reasons he/she is recommending them.
  
• "How many surgeries do you perform each year?" It's not insulting to ask your doctor how skilled they are in the surgery you need.
  
• "If I get sick, will you see me in the hospital?" It used to be a matter of routine for physicians to make rounds at the hospital. But the number of physicians who specialize in inpatient care has risen, and many primary-care physicians no longer do rounds. Ask your doctor if he has hospital rounds.

Picking a doctor isn't just as simple as thumbing through the yellow pages. You want to make sure that your doctor is well qualified to meet your medical needs and that he or she has a personality that suits yours. If you're the type of person who has a lot of medical questions, you'll want to make sure you find a doctor who spends a little more time with patients and is willing to field Q & A sessions.

I know that I've had doctors in the past who were distressing for one reason or another. I've also had doctors who were wonderful and I knew, with complete confidence, that either my or my son's medical needs were being met with thoughtful, educated, wise, and caring decisions.

To start your search, check with your insurance company to see what physicians in your area carry your insurance. Also, check with friends, family, and/or neighbors for personal references -- but be sure to take their personal experiences with a grain of salt. Then, follow these tips from Good Housekeeping for selecting a great doctor:

For many people, visiting a doctor can be intimidating. There's the whole authority issue, plus the anxiety that comes with having to deal with a physical exam or possible bad news about a health condition. But according to CNN, women especially can be at risk for a less-than-helpful doctor's visit if they aren't careful.

Some helpful tips:

• Ask questions, or bring someone with you who will.
• Go ahead and research your condition, but don't become overwhelmed by it.
• Recognize gender bias when it happens, and choose a different physician.
• Just the facts, ma'am! Don't interpret your symptoms for you doc, just describe them factually.
• Always trust your intuition.

I've found that if I have specific issues I want to discuss, I must write them down. Otherwise, I nearly always forget to bring them up during the five to 10 minutes I'm actually with the doctor. How do you get the most out of your doctor's appointments?

Are botched surgeries normal? Of course not, but when they are, the problems caused generally are not small ones. If you've ever checked the cost of malpractice insurance most physicians pay, you'll know that botched medical procedures can be very costly. That is, if the patient doesn't end up dying.

Poor post-operative care is being blamed in a breast cancer patient's problems in the UK. The patient, who developed lymphoedema (an incurable and debilitating condition) went from being almost cancer-free to living with painful swelling every day. But, was developing the condition really the fault of poor medical care?

In this case, the problem could have been triggered by something as simple as having your blood pressure taken, a skin infection, a cut or insect bite. Is that malpractice or just a possible complication that can't be avoided?

The case of a Pennsylvania doctor who treated an autistic boy with a controversial chemical treatment has reached its pinnacle, as the physician has now been charged with that boy's death.

The suit charges that Dr. Roy Kerry, 69 not only used the wrong drug with the 5 year-old autistic boy, but administered it incorrectly as well.

As a result, Abubakar Tariq Nadama went into cardiac arrest in Kerry's office and died shortly thereafter. Chelation, a treatment meant to remove heavy metals from the human body, was the treatment Kerry was trying to administer, but it has not been approved by the FDA a a treatment for autism.

The key to having a successful doctor's visit is to be able to get your questions answered and your health assessed in the shortest time possible. Nobody has time to waste, you or the doctor. So follow these tips for the most efficient and satisfying trip to the MD office:

• Plan ahead. Write down all of your medical problems and keep a symptom diary, instead of expecting to just remember everything on the spot. Be specific.
• Know how you're feeling. The doctor can't feel sick for you, so you'll have to communicate exactly what's going on or he/she won't be able to help you.
• Know your medications. Know the names, dosages, and times of everything you take -- including herbal and OTC remedies.
• Be honest, and don't leave details out.
• Get over your embarrassment -- your doctor has heard it all!
• Keep an open mind. It's one thing to be educated and have an idea going in about what the issue may be, but it's something else altogether to go in with all kinds of preconceived notions about what treatment you should be getting. Let the doctor decide, that's his/her job.
• Write things down at the appointment that you want to look up or follow-up on later, like medications or information.

I don't think that anyone would be particularly happy to notice that their hair is thinning. It's got to be upsetting for men, but since it's a more common occurrence among that sex, I think that it would be even harder for a women who is losing her hair.

If you've found that your mane isn't as thick as it used to be, is patchy or even starting to show bald spots, you might want to check out this gallery, which offers 20 tips on how to deal with thinning hair. The first, and probably most important tip is to head to your doctor. There may be a reason why you're losing hair and a physician can help you find a remedy.

Additional advice includes improving your diet and taking vitamins to improve hair quality, experimenting with a new hair style that will disguise patches and trying out volumizing or other specialty products to improve the look of your hair. To see the rest of the tips, take a look here.

Preventive health check-ups account for about one in every 12 outpatient visits to doctors, according to Pittsburgh researchers.

About 63.5 million adults had a preventive health or gynecological check-up each year between 2002 and 2004, with an average annual cost of about $7.8 billion.

Of course, the data in the survey was from doctors themselves, who responded with the 12 percent representation. Of the doctors who participated, just under 5,400 patients came in for preventive check-ups and just over 3,000 were in for gynecological exams, out of a total of 181,173 patients.

The most popular preventive exams from the surveyed doctors included mammograms, cholesterol screening and smoking cessation.

It's a little frightening to hear that a misdiagnosis of deadly cancer can happen form something like a lump under the skin, but that is just what happened to a patient recently.

The real diagnosis? A harmful fatty growth -- but no tumor. How can such an incorrect diagnosis happen with a medical professional who is trained to find problems? Hard to say, but when a rare type of lymphoma is not even close to what the real problem is, I say something is terribly wrong.

But, it happens, and quite often. In 2005, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association gave up a startling fact: doctors are wrong 10 percent to 15 percent of the time. That's what all those second opinions are good for, I guess.

On pretty much every TV show about hospitals there's always a hot-shot surgeon or sexy intern who seem to care more about their image than consoling patients. They use overly-complicated medical jargon, rush through a diagnosis and give patients little emotional care -- they help heal the patient but they don't really make them feel better.

Does this sort of thing just exist on TV? It looks like no according to a study done at the University of McGill in Montreal. The study examined results of a clinical skills exam taken by over 3000 doctors in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The physicians who scored low on the test also had more patient complaints lodged against them, and the majority of these grievances were communication issues. Doctors who, just like the hot-shots on shows like ER and Grey's Anatomy, were judgmental, condescending and ignored what patients had to say.

So while being a good communicator doesn't necessarily make one a better doctor, the best doctors definitely know how to communicate.

Have you ever thought of your doctor being "hired or fired" by a patient? A patient/physician relationship is very important, as patients need empathy and doctors need to know every possible detail possible -- things that aren't just shown on medical charts.

Do you have chemistry with your doc? If not, have you considered "firing" him or her? This is not necessarily an indication of medical incompetence, but possibly just incompatibility. I know of folks that have fired doctors for something as simple as poor bedside manner.

Does your doctor look at you as an individual instead of one of a handful of patients? It's pretty easy to tell when there is little to no personal attachment or attention by a physician, yes? Although it's hard to be that to each patient, doctors must make every effort. If yours is not, what are you going to do?

In a case of experience really (really) counting, it has been found that prostate surgery performed on patients by older doctors have a better chance of succeeding when compared to the same procedures by younger doctors.

Your surgeons need experience to become seasoned surgeons -- that makes complete sense. When it comes to something as serious as prostate surgery, though, many surgeons continued improving until they had performed about 250 of the operations.

According to a recent study, almost 18% of men treated by surgeons with a lack of professional experience when it came to their prostate surgery found evidence that prostate cancer conditions returned five years after the initial surgery.

Sometimes I wonder if we're far too reliant on doctors to be looking out for our best interests. Shouldn't we be addressing our own health concerns rather than trusting our lives with someone who sees us once a month or so? My dad died of cancer a couple of years ago, and while his doctor ignored his symptoms, telling him it was just 'old age', he (and I) knew that there was something more to it than that -- we ignored our gut instincts and he paid the ultimate price for it.

My experience is that instincts are hardly ever wrong, and while you might not want to bother your busy MD with your 'feelings', it's better to be safe than sorry, right? eDiet's agrees with me -- This article encourages you to not take everything your doctor tels you as gospel, because after all, who knows you better than you do? No one.

A new medical school in Washington plans to produce graduates interested specifically in working in the areas that need them most, namely the rural areas in the Pacific Northwest. The College of Osteopathic medicine, which just recently broke ground, is expected to open by the fall of 2008, which puts it's first graduating class (estimated to be around 70 students) ready in 2012.

Graduates are not actually required to work in rural areas, but a desire to service rural communities is part of the selection process for admission. The university also plans to continue actively seeking grants and other funds for further expansion into other health-related programs and colleges on the campus.

Are physicians also good nutritionists? In most cases, probably not. Nutrition is not a priority in medical school courses, although it should be a top priority. Remember this: "garbage in, garbage out". In other words, if you eat junk, your body will become junk.

But, the medical community is getting better (hopefully). On that note, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is distributing a 900-page nutrition guide to medical students in the United States and Canada free of charge.

After all, it's 2007 (it's about time!). Good doctors will make sound nutritional advice available to patients who have fatty and unhealthy diets, and newer doctors need to supplement the traditional "repair shop" medical mentality to one of preventive maintenance.