LogFAQs > #980219571

And that's really the problem: To get useful information, you need to find people who are trustworthy and have had experience with the medication in question, and on top of that you need to find quite a few of them to get an accurate picture of what the risks are (2/2 people saying "it made me feel nauseous" is not enough to conclude that nausea is a common side effect, nor is 2/2 people not mentioning blood clotting problems enough to conclude that it can't cause clotting problems).

Your doctor has ready access to literature discussing the medication, has likely prescribed it before and managed the prescription for other patients, and knows enough about the broader picture of your health to make guesses about how this medication will fit into that picture. Personal anecdotes often feel better than a formal professional opinion based on statistics and whatnot, but they're decidedly less useful for risk analysis than accounts that look at the bigger picture.

Your pharmacy may have packaged a medication information sheet with it, or can provide one if you ask for it (pharmacists can also be a good source of information about what to expect from the medication, sometimes even more so than your doctor). That can provide you a high-level summary of what to expect/watch out for, though it won't capture any of your personal nuance.