Many patients go to their doctors for a diagnosis or treatment, but they often forget to ask questions about their condition. A doctor and a physician's assistant put together a guide to help patients know what to ask at their next appointment.

When time in the waiting room is longer than the time spent in the exam room, it's easy to leave the doctors office confused.

"There is so much to address in a short period of time," said Dr. Sagar Nigwekar of Rochester General Hospital, one of the authors of "Top 5 Questions to Ask Your Doctor."

"And that usually involves a phone call later, or more office visits, or some uncertainty about their health in general," said physician’s assistant Jim Sutton, the book’s other author.

Even those who see patients say the whole process can be a little intimidating.

"It's not uncommon to come across a situation where patients leave the doctor's office without really understanding what the diagnosis is," said Dr. Nigwekar.

That's something Dr. Nigwekar learned first hand when he became a patient himself last year.

“That evening I can think of five, six questions that I should have asked her that I totally forgot. Then I started thinking, ‘why did that happen?’" he said.

Nigwekar realized these visits would be more productive if patients had a guide, so he teamed up with Jim Sutton to write one.

The guide lists 154 of the most common medical conditions, along with top five questions you should ask your doctor about them.

"If they have a precise list of questions to ask then it will make the doctor's job easy so that they can address other things in the visit, so it's kind of a win-win situation," said Nigwekar. "It will stimulate the conversation between the patient and the physician."

The answers to these questions were intentionally left out. The idea is to get both sides talking, ultimately improving the doctor/patient relationship and the quality of the visit.

After all, knowing the right questions is the first step to getting the right answers.

"It's going to empower them to know more about their medical condition," said Sutton.

Top 5 Questions to Ask Your Doctor