Fran Drescher, founder of Cancer Schmancer and a cancer survivor, offers a dozen ways for women to stay truly empowered as "medical consumers."

By Fran Drescher

Is there really a "right" way and a "wrong" way to go to the doctor? Of course there is! When we patients -- or, as I prefer to call us, "medical consumers" -- go to the doctor we must be fully prepared. Sure, you don't feel well, and naturally you're scared, but just as the soldier on the front line of a battlefield cannot indulge those feelings, neither can you. You will only get so much time once you enter the examining room, so you must make every second count.

Let me walk you through the process based on my own experience:

Stay one step ahead of your doctor's office: Get the name of the person you're speaking with and request that any forms that may need to be filled out be faxed to you in advance so that you won't have to deal with that in the outer office. Also, fax your doctor's office all of your insurance information and credit card info should any advance payment be necessary. Again, the less of this crap you have to deal with at the time of your appointment, the better. Make sure to ask if any blood, urine, or fecal tests will be taken that may require you to fast for several hours prior to your appointment. Do not expect the person from the doctor's office to be the picture of efficiency. In fact, expect just the opposite and cover as many bases as possible.

Choose your timing: If there is any way you can avoid going on a Friday or right before a holiday I advise you to do so; it just protracts the agony of waiting for test results and/or a prognosis.

Pre-book procedures and tests before you see your doctor. The last thing you want to hear is something looks suspicious but you'll have to wait two weeks to get an opening for that MRI or CT scan, not to mention an operating room. These things can always be cancelled but if they're booked up, you're plain out of luck.

Chaperone your test results. Imaging-test results come on disc or film, or are digitized, and I recommend you pick them up from one place and hand-deliver them to the other. The less middlemen involved, the less opportunity for screw-ups. Keep copies of all lab work results and doctor evaluations as well.

Prepare your questions. Write down everything that you or your loved ones want the doctor to answer; don't try to remember everything because you won't. Start your medical "grocery list" immediately and add to it as you think of new questions; that way, as you're leaving the office you aren't saying, "Crap, I knew I wanted to ask him/her that!"