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For patients, be an inquiring mind

Patients can help the doctor think by asking questions. If he mentions a possible complication from surgery, they can ask how often it happens. If he talks about pain and lingering discomfort from a procedure, they can ask how the pain compares with having a tooth pulled under Novocain, or some other unpleasant event. If he recommends a procedure, patients can ask why, what might be found, with what probability, and, importantly, how much difference it will make to find it. Some physicians will be uneasy, some even angry, when queried this way, because they may not have all the answers. Others will take the time and clearly respond to these simple, direct, reasonable questions. The kind of response illuminates how much the doctor really knows about your case, and how much still needs to be discovered.

For doctors, there's also a plethora of insights. For one, bedside manner counts.

Paradoxically, such confidence is bolstered, Light said, when a physician opens his mind to a patient and explains what he knows and what he doesn't know, what is firm about his findings and what is still unclear, which symptoms he can account for and which still demand explanation.

And

This was another message that Dr. Light believes surgeons should communicate to their patients, especially in advance of an operation. "The perfect is the enemy of the good," Light said. "Nothing that you do in surgery is perfect. Everything is a compromise." ...While you cannot predict a specific outcome for any particular patient, Light emphasized, you need to be candid and not paint too rosy a scenario.