The Numbers Don't Lie

Before I tell you my story, I need you to understand that it is not unique. It is not an outlier. It is the statistical norm for women seeking medical care in America.

93% of women aged 25-34 report feeling dismissed when seeking medical help.

Over 40% visited multiple providers before receiving a diagnosis.

Women with chest pain wait 29% longer in the ER for heart attack evaluation than men.

Women are 7x more likely to be sent home during a heart attack.

Women have a 50-59% greater chance of being misdiagnosed during cardiac events.

Women with endometriosis wait an average of 9 years for diagnosis.

The KFF Women's Health Survey found that 29% of women report doctors dismissing their concerns, compared to 21% of men. Women are more likely to be believed to be lying (15% vs. 12%) and more likely to report discrimination (9% vs. 5%).

A UK survey of over 110,000 women found that 50% felt their pain was disregarded. Women were frequently told symptoms (particularly those related to menstrual health) were "to be expected" and didn't deserve medical attention.

This isn't paranoia. It's epidemiology.

Naming the Harm: What Is Medical Gaslighting?

A 2024 study published in Current Psychology defines medical gaslighting as "the invalidation, dismissal, and denial of symptoms presented by a patient, often trying to ascribe symptoms to psychological issues or attention-seeking." The study demonstrates that medical gaslighting creates a form of trauma that doesn't fit standard PTSD criteria but causes the same lasting harm.

A separate study on Ehlers-Danlos syndrome patients coined the term "Clinician-Associated Trauma" (CAT) to describe the trauma created by repeated negative clinical interactions. This isn't one bad appointment... it's the cumulative effect of being dismissed, disbelieved, and gaslit by the very people who are supposed to help you.

As one PMC study notes: "Gaslighting has been used by physicians to dismiss women's health problems, enforcing the misogynist stereotype that women are irrational and 'hysterical' - a prejudice that dates back centuries."

Medical gaslighting erodes trust, negatively impacts future healthcare interactions, and leads to what researchers call "medical trauma." Every dismissive appointment triggers PTSD. Every provider who treats patient research like a threat worsens anxiety. Every time we have to fight for routine care, our autonomic nervous systems, often already dysregulated, go into overdrive.

The system makes us sicker. And then blames us for being sick.

The AI Hypocrisy

In late 2025, I established care with a new provider; let's call him NP Adams. In our first appointment, he told me: "I use AI. I'm an advocate of AI. I had an AI transcription tool running during our entire conversation."

Great, I thought. We're on the same page. We both understand that AI is a tool for efficient information synthesis.

Then I got sicker. I developed new alarming symptoms: bladder incontinence, bloody noses, nerve pain that hadn't resolved in seven weeks, continued daily vomiting, 14 pounds of weight loss. I sent him an urgent document outlining what I'd found in the medical literature:

SNRIs like Duloxetine are explicitly contraindicated in hyperadrenergic POTS per Vanderbilt Autonomic Dysfunction Center guidelines, because they increase synaptic norepinephrine and worsen sympathetic overdrive. The timeline matched: I started Duloxetine, and six months later my gastroparesis, which had been in remission for three years after surgery, came roaring back.

I met criteria for empiric thiamine treatment per European Federation of Neurological Societies guidelines on Wernicke encephalopathy prevention. The triad of vomiting plus weight loss plus new neuropathy is classic gastrointestinal beriberi. The guidelines say treat first, check levels later, because delay can cause permanent brain damage.

I needed basic metabolic tests, beta-hydroxybutyrate, prealbumin, magnesium... standard labs available at any commercial laboratory.

I cited my sources. I explained my reasoning. I organized everything to make his job easier.

His response: "I'm not going to take your recommendations." He called standard labs "Mayo Clinic level" testing. He offered to see me in clinic after I'd told him multiple times I was too dizzy to drive.

When he uses AI, it's professional. When I use AI, it's threatening.

The difference isn't the tool. The difference is who's holding the information.

The Pattern Repeats

NP Adams isn't unique. He's a symptom of a larger disease. Here are highlights from my year:

Rural Utah ER, December 2025: Dr. Bennett told me all my problems are from cannabis and refused thiamine despite clear malnutrition markers. He ignored my explanation of why I don't have Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome. Patients with CHS are drawn to hot showers because heat activates TRPV1 receptors, and I have POTS, which makes me heat intolerant. This alone clinically excludes CHS. He didn't care. He also ordered a pregnancy test despite my chart clearly documenting my hysterectomy.

Rural Utah ER, November 2025: I presented with severe nerve pain following an IM injection that caused immediate electric shock-like pain during administration, pathognomonic for nerve injury. NP Carter told me it's "highly unlikely" an injection could cause nerve damage. Sciatic nerve injection injury is the most common nerve injured by IM injection and is extensively documented in medical literature. He refused diagnostic imaging, suggested "heat/cold and ibuprofen," and took his notes on a napkin. A napkin!

The common threads: Young woman. Complex chronic illness. Mental health history. Cannabis prescription. Educated and articulate. Did her research.

I am a "difficult patient." And the system punishes difficult patients by withholding care until we learn to be appropriately grateful and deferential.

How the System Fails Us

Would NP Adams have treated a 29-year-old man who brought him peer-reviewed research from Vanderbilt the same way? Would he have called it "inappropriate recommendations"? Would he have built conditional barriers to care?

Or would he have said, "Interesting findings. Let's discuss this"?

Research confirms that women's perceptions of gender bias are correct. One study found that providers perceive women to be in less pain than they actually are. Women's "facial expressiveness" was considered exaggerated, leading doctors to regard women's pain as less credible. Men in chronic pain are regarded as "stoic" while women are considered "emotional," "hysterical," or accused of "fabricating pain."

The medical system was built on research that used male bodies as the default. Women weren't even required to be included in clinical trials until 1993. As Dr. Janine Clayton of the NIH's Office of Research on Women's Health explains: "Because we have studied women less, we know less about them. The result is that women may not have always received the most optimal care."

There's a reason "difficult patient" is code for "woman who advocates for herself."

Conditional Help Is Not Help

"I'm happy to help, BUT..." is manipulation.

"I'm happy to help" BUT "I'm not going to take your recommendations." "I'm happy to see you" BUT only in person even when you've told me you can't drive. "I'm happy to discuss thiamine" BUT only after getting labs first which contradicts the guidelines you cited.

Either help or don't. Don't create barriers designed to make patients give up. Don't offer appointments they can't physically attend. Don't require tests that contradict clinical guidelines.

The Cost

I've declared medical bankruptcy twice before the age of 30. Not because I have rare diseases requiring experimental treatments. Because I keep getting dismissed, denied, and gaslit until my conditions deteriorate to the point of crisis. And crisis care is expensive.

A doctor's appointment should feel safer than a spa. Instead, it's high-intensity anxiety. Will they believe me this time? Will they dismiss my research? Will they blame everything on my mental health or my cannabis prescription? Will they order the tests I need or call them "inappropriate"?

What You Can Do

If you recognize yourself in this story:

Document everything. Keep copies of your messages, your research, the guidelines you cite. Screenshot everything. When, not if, you need to escalate, you'll have evidence.

File formal complaints. Every state has a Division of Professional Licensing that oversees medical providers. Hospital systems have patient relations departments. These complaints create paper trails.

Request your medical records. You have a legal right to them. Read what providers write about you. Dispute inaccuracies in writing.

Know that your research is valid. Using AI to organize medical information is no different than printing articles from Mayo Clinic. You're allowed to be educated about your own body.

Find providers who collaborate. They exist. They're rare, but they exist. A good provider says "I don't know, but let's figure it out together," not "I won't take your recommendations."

The Reckoning

I'm tired. Tired of fighting for basic care. Tired of having my research dismissed. Tired of being labeled "difficult" for daring to be educated. Tired of medical trauma compounding my physical illness.

But I'm also a journalist. And journalists don't shut up just because the truth is uncomfortable.

So here's the truth: Medical education doesn't actually come with a superiority complex. But too many providers act like it does.

Until that changes, until providers view educated patients as assets rather than threats, until "I did my research" is met with curiosity rather than dismissal, until collaborative care becomes the default instead of the exception.... patients like me will keep documenting, keep filing complaints, and keep demanding better.

Because we deserve better. And deep down, even the providers with god complexes know it.

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Do you have a medical dismissal story? Share it. Document it. Let's build the evidence together. Because the more we share, the harder it becomes for the system to pretend this isn't happening.

And to the providers who made it this far: Welcome to the reckoning. What are you going to do differently?

*Alias names were given to the individuals in this article.*