Her doctor said "this is exactly what I need"

Today's Tip: Get More Out of Your Next Doctor Visit

The average doctor visit lasts about fifteen minutes… and most of that time gets spent trying to remember what you meant to ask.

Let me explain…

My friend Hattie Voss is a reference librarian in Ann Arbor. Sharp as they come. She books her appointments, jots things on the fridge notepad, and still walks out of the office kicking herself for forgetting the two things that were bothering her most.

Sound familiar?

Two weeks ago, she had a follow-up scheduled for a knee that's been acting up… and a new pill her cardiologist wanted her on. She had three loose scraps of paper, a text from her daughter, and half a memory of what her sister told her about the same medication.

So the night before, she opened Gemini on her laptop and typed everything she was thinking about into one long, messy paragraph. Then she asked Gemini to turn that mess into a one-page sheet she could hand to the doctor. Symptoms grouped by body part. Questions in order of importance. A short list of every medication and supplement she was taking.

She printed it. Slid it across the desk. The doctor read it, nodded, and said, "This is exactly what I need." They finished with time to spare.

Hattie is not a tech person. She learned this trick from a niece over the summer. And the whole thing took her about twelve minutes at the kitchen table.

Here's the prompt that does it…

You do not need to write beautifully. You do not need to spell things right. You can literally paste in a run-on paragraph that says "left knee hurts when I go down stairs starting maybe three weeks ago, also that new blood pressure pill is giving me a dry cough at night, and Sarah said her cousin got dizzy on it, want to ask about that."

Gemini will sort it. That's the whole point.

And when you print the result, keep it to one physical page. Doctors will read one page. They will not read three.

Now, I know what you're thinking… "The doctor is going to think I'm being difficult."

The opposite. Every doctor I've talked to about this trick has said the same thing: patients who bring a written list are the easiest patients of the day. It shows you respect their time. It also shows you're paying attention to your own health, which is what they want.

And if a doctor ever does bristle at a written list… that tells you something you needed to know about the doctor.

Try this before your next appointment. Any appointment. Primary care, specialist, dentist, physical therapist. The format works everywhere.

Twelve minutes at the kitchen table can change what happens in the exam room.

★ Quick Wins

Skill Builder: The Show-Your-Work Prompt

There's a trick teachers used to make you do in math class… show your work. Not just the answer. The steps.

Turns out that same trick is one of the most useful things you can ask an AI to do.

When you let AI just spit out an answer, you have no way to check it. But when you ask it to walk you through its reasoning step by step, three things happen. You can spot mistakes. You can learn something. And you can push back on any step that seems off.

Say you ask an AI to help you decide whether to refinance your car loan. If it just says "yes, refinance," you're taking it on faith. But if it lays out the current rate, the new rate, the fees, the months left on the loan, and the total difference over time, now you can look at each piece and check whether it got any of them wrong.

The same trick works for anything that involves a decision or a calculation. Medicare plan comparisons. Whether to take a lump sum or an annuity. Whether to fix or replace an appliance. Ask AI to show its work, and suddenly you're the one in charge.

Here is the prompt you can save…

Try adding this to any question where the stakes actually matter. Money, health, big purchases, family decisions. It adds maybe fifteen seconds to the response time. It saves you from acting on a wrong answer.

The best AI users I know rarely take the first answer at face value. They ask AI to explain itself, and then they read the explanation.