Stevea Robbins here.

Welcome to the Get It Done Guys' quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

In part one of this series on taking care of someone with a serious illness,

I discussed professional sitters and weekly action planning to relieve the day-to-day pressure.

Today, we'll discuss managing medications and evaluating treatment options.

Most of these tips are things I learned while caring for my mother in the final days of her life.

Unlike my colleague the house call doctor, I'm not a doctor.

I always wanted to be a surgeon, and then I saw Mel Brooks Young Frankenstein, and it scared me into a more traditional career bath.

Accounting started to look really exciting.

This episode does not give medical advice. What we'll be discussing is how to work with your doctor when you need to make

medical decisions. Tip number one, take responsibility. In America, doctors are often trained

to behave as if they know everything. This confidence helps to inspire trust in

patients. But confidence does not mean a doctor is perfect. Your doctor is not a god. Your doctor is

not even a minor underling of the demon Cthulu. Doctors are human. They can make mistakes. Unless you

can afford concierge care, a doctor will spend 15 to 30 minutes to diagnose problems

with the most complicated biological system we know of, the human body.

My car mechanic takes longer than that to diagnose that funny noise in my car, and the car comes

with an owner's manual.

Like it or not, you have to take responsibility for the course of medical treatment,

even though you're clearly way less qualified than the doctor. You can exercise that responsibility,

however, by just blindly doing everything your doctor says, or by taking a more active part in the

medical care. Tip number two is take time to understand.

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