The parenthetical remark in the title of this section is a pun on the saying, popularly attributed to Jesus, "Physician, heal thyself". I just meant that some physicians are heels. Let me get that off my chest right at the start:

Rule #1: Doctors all have to be smart, but that doesn't mean they're not jerks.

I'm lucky to have found both a doctor and a neurologist who fit my requirements. It wasn't easy, I had to shop around a little. My requirements are:

1. Competence: most doctors are competent, that's what medical boards are for.
2. Empathy: I want to be treated like a person.
3. Communication: I want to be able to ask questions. Some doctors don't like their diagnoses questioned, but I feel better when I get explanations and I'm not shy about asking for them.

But not necessarily in that order. It's OK to change doctors if yours doesn't suit you:

Rule #2: All doctors are created equal, but some are more equal than others.

Don't just evaluate the doctor, evaluate the staff and the policies of the institution or office. I quit seeing an excellent neurologist who is actually a research scientist at a medical school. First, he canceled two appointments. Then, when I tried to reschedule, his staff could only give me an appointment 3 months in the future. When questioned they were quite snippy. It's policy, they said, that when the doctor has to travel to a conference, that they go down the list of patients in alphabetical order to make new appointments. By the time they got down to the "P"s, all of the "good" slots were taken. The only slots left were early morning ones, at least for the next 3 months. My wife tried to argue that we have to drive 25 miles to the hospital and that we have 3 kids that we need to get to school at 8am and no family or support network in the area, and that I have a full-time job, and that surely some exception could be made for hardship cases like ours. No luck. So in the end I gave up seeing him, because:

Rule #3: You can have the best neurologist in the world, but if you can't get to see him/her, then what's the use?

Medical school is tough. During residency young doctors often go days without sleep and work 120 hour weeks. Even after they establish their own practice, your doctor may have been "on call" the night before your appointment, which means that by the time you roll in, your doctor may have gone 30 hours without sleep. Also, some patients are jerks, medical insurance sucks, and doctors do have lives of their own, you know. So lighten up on your doctor:

Rule #4: Sometimes doctors have good reason to be grumpy.