None ever did, despite the fact that I spent many afternoons waiting in doctors' offices hoping to learn why I felt so sick. Many times while I sat in the waiting rooms, young, blow-dried women carrying briefcases with poetic names of prescription drugs embossed on them bypassed me and went directly into the doctor's office. I frequently returned home from my visits with jewelry-sized boxes of the same drugs. "Start with these free samples," the doctors instructed me. "Try them for four days, and call if you want a refill."

Jerome Groopman's widely acclaimed book, "How Doctors Think," opens with an episode similar to mine. Anne Dodge consults nearly 30 doctors for her increasingly debilitating gastrointestinal symptoms, which include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. She is diagnosed with anorexia and irritable bowel syndrome. After 15 years -- and severely malnourished -- Dodge finds a doctor who does something different. He observes her manner and listens to her -- and diagnoses celiac disease. He saves her life. Groopman concludes that doctors must pay more attention to patient reports and resist the temptation to dismiss poorly understood complaints as psychosomatic.

One answer may lie in the increasing ability of pharmaceutical companies to influence doctors. Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, details how drug companies have become marketing machines for their products in her recent book, "The Truth About Drug Companies." Thousands of sales representatives visit doctors' offices and hospitals to make their pitches and offer free wares. Drug companies send physicians to conferences at plush resorts to hear about their drugs. As the New York Times recently reported, some physicians received millions of dollars to prescribe anemia medicines for their cancer patients. Although doctors insist that they are immune to the industry's blandishments, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. concluded that "physician-industry interactions [appear] to affect prescribing and professional behavior."