Do they get frustrated? (Yup) Care about your health? (Definitely) Gossip about you? (Oh, yes)

Reader's Digest recently asked two-dozen general practitioners, surgeons, shrinks, pediatricians, and other specialists around the world to sound off on everything from your health, living in a pressure cooker, and insider secrets, all in the goal of improving doctor-patient relationships. Some results were amusing, some were helpful--and others were downright shocking. Turns out doctors...

Notice how you look:
• We become much more enthusiastic when a young person comes along. We have more in common with and are more attracted to him or her. Doctors have a limited amount of time, so the younger and more attractive you are, the more likely you are to get more of our time.
--Family physician, Washington, D.C.

• When a doctor tells you to lose 15 to 20 pounds, what he really means is you need to lose 50. --Tamara Merritt, DO, family physician, Brewster, Washington

• It's pretty common for doctors to talk about their patients and make judgments, particularly about their appearance. --Family physician, Washington, D.C.

Wish you'd take care of yourself:
• I am utterly tired of being your mother. Every time I see you, I say the obligatory "You need to lose some weight." But you swear you "don't eat anything" or "the weight just doesn't come off." So I'm supposed to hold your hand and talk you into backing away from that box of Twinkies. Boy, do I get tired of repeating the stuff most patients just don't listen to. --Cardiologist, Brooklyn, N.Y.

• I wish patients would take more responsibility for their own health and stop relying on me to bail them out of their own problems.
--ER physician, Colorado Springs, Colorado

• The most unsettling thing for a physician is when the patient doesn't trust you or believe you.--Obstetrician-gynecologist, New York, N.Y.

Have a smarmy side:

• Thank you for bringing in a sample of your (stool, urine, etc.) from home. I'll put it in my personal collection of things that really gross me out.
--Douglas Farrago, MD, editor, Placebo Journal

• So let me get this straight: You want a referral to three specialists, an MRI, the medication you saw on TV, and an extra hour for this visit? Gotcha. Do you want fries with that?
--Douglas Farrago, Maryland

• I was told in school to put a patient in a gown when he isn't listening or cooperating. It casts him in a position of subservience. --Chiropractor, Atlanta, Ga.

Don't play by the rules:

• I used to have my secretary page me after I had spent five minutes in the room with a difficult or overly chatty patient. Then I'd run out, saying, "Oh, I have an emergency."
--Oncologist, Santa Cruz, Calif.

• Sometimes it's easier for a doctor to write a prescription for a medicine than to explain why the patient doesn't need it.
--Cardiologist, Bangor, Maine

To find out what your doctor does want you to know, click here.