Ten questions you must ask your doctor. Ray Moynihan, Melissa Sweet. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2008 (xvii + 238 pp). ISBN 978 1 74175 145 1.

Ten questions you must ask your doctor, by Ray Moynihan and Melissa Sweet, is a timely contribution to issues involving the patient–doctor relationship. The basis of any such relationship should be trust. Trust is not a given; it relies on good communication. Yet, communication does not always work out well in these relationships (as complaints to my office testify), as much because of patients and their state of mind as because of busy general practitioners themselves. We know patients want to participate in decisions about their health, but they are not always in a position to know how to get the information they need.

Will this book assist patients and doctors to communicate better and, if so, how? The authors are leading health writers, and this book is written with the consumer in mind: “This book will help you and your loved ones”.

Questioning that is aggressive or overly assertive has the potential to undermine the relationship between doctors and patients. Moynihan and Sweet explain that questions framed constructively have the potential to assist patient and doctor by encouraging relevance, and could promote efficiency. Useful questions include “How long will it take for this treatment to have a useful effect?” and “Are there other treatment options, which don’t involve taking pills?”

There are helpful tips, for example, “be sceptical about medical promotion” and “headlines can be misleading”. The questions on page 164 about evidence for particular health information are particularly useful. Chapter nine is dedicated to “Who else is profiting here?” The question, “What are your links with drug companies (or device companies, or complementary medicine companies)?” is not likely to be helpful in a therapeutic setting. In any event, many doctors would not have the answer.

The authors of this book are no newcomers to examining difficult and complex issues within health and our health systems. At $24.95, this is a useful book with the potential to be of assistance to doctors and patients.