I went to my rheumatologist appointment yesterday. I only go every year or so, and I’ve become– over the years– much less apprehensive about the experience; I already have a firm diagnosis that upended my life– what else can they discover? But I still get nervous. When I was little, I thought that doctors had magical ability to figure out what was wrong with you just by examining you, as if the stethescope and blood pressure cuff had magical abilities.  In fact, I was nervous that somehow the doctor would discover my secrets.  But becoming a doctor myself– and even more importantly, becoming a patient– I have discovered how little doctors are able to tell just by looking. The first major milestone on the way to becoming a doctor is to be able to complete an “H &P” or History and Physical Exam. And history is often much more important than the physical. But it’s difficult as a patient to relay a good history to your doctor. First, your doctor usually has a particular agenda, a set of questions that he or she wants to have you answer. Secondly, the whole experience of being weighed, blood pressure taken, questioned by several people, tends to be distracting enough that you forget all the questions that you came to have answered.  Being a good patient is much more challenging to me than being a good doctor.  There is a balance that I am trying to learn how to strike between melodramatic about every little ache and pain and being too stoic and not having my questions answered. Monday I go for my yearly ultrasound of the heart and lung function tests; I’ll be crossing my fingers that I won’t have to see more doctors and be more of a patient in the near future.