he very word "patient" implies passivity and powerlessness. Me-teacher-you-dumbbell, or me-doctor-you-patient, or me-politician-you-voter, or any other paternalistic or maternalistic stay-in-your-place tradition will not pass muster with me.

We can take more time and interest, and give more attention to our personal health than a hired professional can. We have learned to go get medical help, not to give it. We have learned to relay our body's needs to another, not to provide them ourselves.

We need total health more than medically approved health. Our wellness should not be limited to our doctor's experience, but enhanced by our own experience.

A doctor's authority in America often exceeds his or her knowledge. Whole bodies of knowledge in healing are ignored because they are unorthodox and non-medical. A doctor's education seems exhaustive, yet MDs study so much about drugs and surgery - and so little about nutrition, fasting, herbal remedies, spinal manipulation, massage, vitamin and mineral therapy, homeopathy, and more - that we realize their qualifications are incomplete.

It is possible to learn more than your doctor knows, particularly in key areas that specifically apply to you. In fact, you may discover material that your doctor never saw, or did see and never investigated.

Much of the fear of doing something wrong vanishes when we are knowledgeable about what we are doing.

I wish there were easy answers to people's health questions. There aren't. There are answers, all right, but they are not easy.