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Here’s the issue. The minute you enter your doctor’s office you are confronted with the problem of what is the appropriate way to go about getting him to understand your situation. After all, he’s been there all day dealing with all manner of wet and smelly things, suffering the know-it-alls whose reptilian understanding of medicine resists all modern logic and reason, and all this while he’s slogging through paper-work the size of a coffin from insurance nation. By now he’s into his daily battle with his stress-induced sour stomach. Time is money, he thinks. Then you show up.

The stars are lining up for a disaster. But you know this because you are not just any patient. You are a professional patient. You may not be getting paid, although your boss is paying for a sick day and that is pretty darn close to a professional fee. True enough. But what’s really important here is that you are approaching this visit as would any budding professional who is building a mastery of their craft. You do your research.

You know, for example, that your doctor is board certified and sort of speaks English. Good.

But wait, there are many more things that can weigh on the man and affect his medical judgment. Is he in the middle of a divorce? And how big are his alimony payments? Does he have any teenage children? What’s his golf handicap? Did he take his medication today? And what day is your appointment? Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, all in all, being not good karma days as they say.

And what if your doctor is too young, too old, too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, too French or too anything for your too too taste? How will you know if you don’t do the proper research?

Unfortunately, WebMD is a little on the light side when it comes to answers for these important questions. You are on your own.

Once you’ve sorted through the preliminaries, your second major challenge is to get his attention once you are in the door — which, by itself, may take quite a while. Once inside you will spend more time riding on the back of a raging, frothing bull than the doctor will allow for you to state your woes. Eight seconds is really good, fifteen seconds max. For about then is when the legendary “doctor-interruptus” phenomenon begins.

“So,” you say, “one must speak really fast to take full advantage of those precious, expensive and fleeting seconds.” No, no, no. That is the sign of an amateur and not a professional patient. The objective in this opening salvo is to get his attention, not to play into his hands. He is more than ready for your typical plaints because he too is a professional. No, what gets attention here is the element of surprise.

Several strategies come to mind: saying nothing at all for the first 15 seconds is a good move, as is speaking in an imaginary language. More creative approaches such as opening with odd body noises may work. But you don’t really want to scare him.

Regardless of how you design your stunning entrance, you should by now have his rapt, perplexed and, most of all, silent attention.

What to do? Here again, you may say, “shouldn’t I simply and rationally describe my problem.” HA, HA, HA! Sorry, couldn’t help it.

No. Your research should have told you that you now have, at most, ninety seconds to tell your tale. The key is to be efficiently entertaining in the telling. Efficient so as to get all the facts out, and entertaining so as to prevent him from putting on the rubber gloves until after you are finished. Once the gloves go on, his fingers do the talking, if you get my drift. End of conversation.

You could mime your symptoms for those ninety seconds. But better yet, you could video yourself singing your symptoms while at the same time showing directly where you boo boos may be. You can be sure that that kind of presentation will stop him in his tracks. And if he takes exception to your video self-diagnosis, you can confidently tell him that he must be wrong since 6 million YouTube watchers completely agree with you.

Now, these are just my suggestions to get your career as a professional patient off to a good start. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit that, on occasion, you may find yourself talking to a doctor who listens carefully, is courteous, respectful, and gives you all the time you need to explain your ailments. My advice would be to leave that office as fast as you can since he certainly doesn’t know what the hell he is doing and is obviously stalling for time. Oh, one more thing. If your doctor is a woman, please ignore all of the above. I’m told women doctors are perfect and getting more so all the time.