One of the elements I miss most about Southern California since moving to Northern Virginia almost three years ago is the ocean: it's proximity to where I live, visiting it often, seeing the sun set in it, driving Highway 1 with the windows down and smelling it, surfing and swimming in it, everything.

I remember when years ago I'd break up my long and traffic-clogged commute between a newspaper in Thousand Oaks and my apartment in Los Angeles by taking a detour and following Kanan Road from the 101 freeway to Malibu and having a cocktail on the sand at Paradise Cove. Just looking at the ocean relieved my stress from the work day more than any cocktail could. Breathing the air, smelling the salt, feeling the breeze, watching the waves, basking in the sun. It was heavenly and I'd continue my drive home a happier person.

I'm not the first to practice or suggest visiting the ocean or another body of water as a means of stress relief. Nor am I the first to start or suggest imagining such a visit. I find both methods highly successful, even if they leave me with a sad case of nostalgia.

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Do you find yourself paying more for regular doctor visits and other medical services if you pay for them yourself? For those that are self-paying customers or prefer to not have insurance, do you think you pay unreasonable prices for medical services?

In many cases, this is the case. I am sure there is a economic and volume reason why doctors who are members of several insurance networks charge more to patients who prefer to pay themselves, but is this fair? Much of life is full of unfairness these days, but why charge patients different amounts based on who is paying the tab?

I'm interested in hearing form the self-employed and others who may have experienced paying higher prices for medical services based on how you actually pay for those services. Have you experienced this, and how do you know you are paying higher prices?

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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.

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A new study was released this week that highlighted a scary disconnect in the doctor-patient relationship. Some physicians -- in fact, large numbers of them -- are failing to recognize suicide signs and symptoms in patients. These are often the neediest patients when it comes to requiring assistance, so it's distressing to hear that there is a lack of help in abundance here.

Although the study involved actresses who visited various various physicians to show signs of despair and hopelessness, many doctors failed to ask these study participants about their mental state as it related to potential suicide risk. Only 36 percent of doctors went there.

Are doctors not trained that well at probing for possible suicide risks, or are they so hurried with a flurry of patients that they just don't take the time? It's true that primary care physicians are not psychiatrists, although the study stated that 75 percent of people who commit suicide visited a primary-care provider in the 30 days prior.

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As a general rule men don't like to ask for directions and they don't like to ask for help, so you can bet heading to the doctor for a health problem isn't on their list of "guy things" to do. I think most men (or their wives at least) are smart enough to schedule an appointment for many obvious illnesses, but there are some common ones that frequently get completely ignored. Issues like hearing loss, back aches, depression, and even preventative tests that should be routine (like prostate exams) often get put off until serious problems develop down the road.

Although some women put off seeing the doctor also, the percentage of men who try to "tough it out" is much greater. Guys just have to realize that help is there for the taking if they'll just take the initiative to ask for it -- and get the sense to know they need it.

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