The good ol' "Google the Stack Overflow" method. Except when advice is bogus people die. I frankly held doctors (and especially the very generously paid US doctors) in much higher regard until I got older and had a chance to seriously interact with a few. As far as I can tell unless the situation is blindingly clear (in which case Googling the symptoms works about as well as a doctor), they're basically guessing, often badly. To give just one example: I was once suggested a shoulder surgery (with a 6+ mo recovery period) based on an extremely blurry MRI of my shoulder where I'm pretty sure the doctor couldn't really see anything. Because why the hell not take another $20K in revenue for his practice, right? Ironically the shoulder pain went away in about 4 months after I switched my sleeping position.

I now basically avoid doctors other than for the yearly checkup or if there's something serious that Google can't fix (broken leg, or a prescription).