I've talked about how to discuss news of an infection with your partner. What's had me thinking lately is how you talk about news with your doctor. We gynos do lots of tests during your check-up, and we know that you want to hear their results immediately--within hours if possible. Some test results come back the next day (like the test for anemia), while some results return within two or three days (most STDs, including HIV) and some take weeks (your pap smear). Different labs take different amounts of time as well. Even though I know that most of my patients are anxiously awaiting their test results, I can only communicate with each of them once--I simply have too many patients to call them all multiple times. And I know that some gynos' offices don't always tell patients their results at all. Their policy is "no news is good news." As a patient myself, on occasion, this would make me nervous: what if something gets lost?