Be READY for Your Next Appointment
Preparing for a doctor’s visit can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re managing complex health issues. That’s why we created the READY framework, a simple, step-by-step approach to help you organise your symptoms, medications, and questions before you go. It gives you structure without extra stress, so you walk in feeling confident, focused, and prepared to make the most of your time.
Step 1: Reflect
Before gathering information or writing anything down, it helps to pause and reflect. Medical appointments can be stressful, and the build-up often leaves little room to think clearly about what matters most. Taking a moment to prepare your mind allows you to sort through worries, focus on your priorities, and enter the appointment with more clarity and calm.
We’ve created a simple 5-step “Declutter Your Mind” process to guide you through this. It’s designed to help you set aside the noise and focus on what really counts.
Step 2: Empower
Knowing how to Request your Medical Records
Feeling empowered means having the knowledge and tools to take an active role in your care. One of the strongest ways to do this is by accessing your own medical records. For many people with ongoing or complex health needs, these records hold crucial details that support better conversations and decisions.
This is especially important if you see multiple consultants in different hospitals that aren’t connected by an electronic health record, which is often the case in Ireland. By requesting your records, you not only bring the full picture into the room but also take back control of your health journey. That’s what true empowerment looks like.
Step 3: Ask
A big part of feeling prepared is knowing what you might be asked during your appointment. Understanding these questions in advance means you won’t feel caught off guard and can give clearer answers. The table below outlines some of the common questions and links to templates you can use to plan your responses. Better still, our interactive health summary tool, Derek, is trained on these same questions, guiding you through them step by step and creating a clear summary you can download at the end.
Step 4:
Document
Having a documented view of your health before an appointment is vital. It means nothing gets forgotten, you don’t have to rely on memory under pressure, and your doctor gets a clear picture of your symptoms, medications, and history.
Document with Derek
Derek makes this much easier. By guiding you through the key areas in your own words, he brings all the pieces together; symptoms, family history, medications, concerns and organises them into one clear health summary and timeline. It means you don’t have to juggle multiple forms or worry about leaving something out.
Step 5: You
At the heart of every appointment is you, your goals, your concerns, and your right to be heard. Taking a few moments beforehand to focus on what you need ensures the conversation stays centred on your priorities, not just your medical file. Before you go, ask yourself:
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Do you understand what is being said?
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Do you know what the next steps are?
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Have all of your questions been answered?
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Are you clear on what matters most to you from this visit?
Placing yourself at the centre helps you walk away confident that your time with your doctor was spent on what really matters to you. Best of luck with your appointment.
