I think I would agree. The behavior seems to be more dismissive than gaslighting (manipulative). I think a patient doubting their own knowledge or experience definitely happens, but it is a secondary effect from the dismissiveness from the medical provider and not usually the intention.

Unless, we consider it intentional so they need to do less work. Considering a person’s subjective information to be fully true and including that in the plan of care takes more effort, versus following the script you know.

This is part of a larger discussion that one of my classes is covering: “Traditional versus Collaborative Care.” Personally, I think the word collaborative gets tossed around too much and English needs more synonyms for it, but the theories kind of make sense. Traditional approach is basically “I’m the doctor, so I know what is best. If you don’t take these meds, you’re being non-compliant.” While the Collaborative approach is more like “What are the goals for your care?”

Some people don’t care what the provider thinks they care about, or aren’t communicating in a way that connects to the patient enough. A relevant podcast I listened to a while ago mentioned that most disagreements are caused by a difference in expectations. If the medical provider is expecting a “compliant” patient with no questions, they are going to be upset when someone is disagreeing with them. And if a patient is expecting a medical provider to listen to them, but the provider ignores them, they will probably be frustrated, belittled, etc.

I’ve witnessed this second-hand with a family member and I’d say gaslighting is an adequate term for what happens to some patients.

Through some combination of weeks/months for a specialist availability, days to weeks for a primary care opening (with a group, not necessarily your specific doctor), and emergency rooms being at capacity, it’s seemingly impossible to get good care for chronic health problems.

ERs and urgent care facilities are not great options for chronic issues, but they’re often all that’s available. And because they aren’t the specialists and they have a narrow charter of work, they can’t really do anything aside from maybe steroids and morphine every once in a while. I do believe that these institutions are being brought down by the sheer volume of work presented to them and are trying to do their best to keep people alive… but it’s disheartening for everybody