The latest medical news can be dizzying: Medical scientists regularly push new bounds by, for example, targeting cancer treatments based on individual patient genetics. Doctors are applying supercomputing, artificial intelligence, and algorithms to complex diagnoses and attacking deadly viruses with great success.

But as patients see medicine's march, a practical concern emerges: How might these advances benefit me? And that question makes for another: How up-to-date are my doctors so they can provide me with the best of both routine and advanced care in a brave new world?

To protect our health, we need to cast off the old passive mindset and take on full partnership in our care. And that means helping our doctors keep current.

But how?