A short YouTube monologue by McCall McPherson describing medical gaslighting against women. She recounts being dismissed during a doctor visit for her special-needs daughter, cites several statistics (e.g., women diagnosed with cancer an average four years later than men; lower rates of pain medication for women; longer ER waits), and argues this fosters distrust of healthcare. She closes by stating the Modern Thyroid Clinic prioritizes empathetic care, noting its clinicians have personal experience with thyroid disorders.
Chapters
Did you know that women get diagnosed with cancer on average four years later than men and it's because of medical gaslighting? So I just had an experience and got medically gaslit at my special needs daughter's doctor's office. And they didn't realize I was a healthcare provider while they were doing it, but was totally mistreated for completely inappropriate reasons. And I think it's a pervasive problem with women. I know this because women come to see me over and over and over with trauma from medicine for being gaslit and told that their symptoms are in their head or they're depressed and it's not actually a thyroid problem or just this is life, this is how it is getting older. 63% of Caucasian women and 70% of black women report having had their concerns, not being heard at all when they go to the doctor. Like, they wouldn't even listen to their concerns. Studies show women are given painkillers 25% less of the time in hospitals or emergency rooms. Why? Because no one believes them. If men and women express the exact same symptoms and ratings of pain. Men are given painkillers 25% of the time more because they're believed, whereas women feel. People write off women as. Yeah, they're not really in that much. In the waiting rooms of emergency rooms, women wait 33% longer than men. And this is a giant problem because over the course of a woman's lifetime, they begin to distrust healthcare. I was thinking on my way home from this doctor's appointment how horrible it's going to be to go back and almost how I don't want to go back. I will because it's my daughter, but a lot of people wouldn't. And that's really freaking sad that medicine is doing that to people. And you know what? At modern thyroid clinic, we will not do that. That is not how we roll. We refuse to do it. In fact, it's the reason all of our clinicians lives have been directly touched with a thyroid disorder, so that they can actually have some real level of empathy for humans that come to see us.
