A convoluted set of circumstances led me to a quick detour in grad school, to sit in on Anatomy at Harvard Med. This included the dissection portion, in which four med students hunch over the cadaver for 3-4 hours at a time. It lead to some of the best medical conversation I've had in my life.
The best topic was summarized as: When you visit a doctor, odds are that he/she has about 15 minutes to an hour to evaluate you before moving onto the next case (often because there are bills to pay.) If you are not an expert on your particular medical history and circumstances, then you are basically screwed, because there is nobody human who can digest all of your medical history and circumstances in the allotted amount of time. It still essentially holds true if you have some serious condition: Consider all of the other patients on the doctor's plate.
That, combined with several other stories and experiences, had a big effect on me: It became obvious that it is worth enormous amounts of time and money to keep fit. When it comes to the med community, the only way to win is not to play.