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Similar story, my ex had health issues most of her life and her doctors kept missing what was going on, partially because they didn't believe her about some things. One doctor deciding to investigate instead of dismissing saved her life when he found out her birth control was killing her, though her gp at the time still wanted her to finish the course.

That same gp also didn't believe she was actually dislocating her limbs until she finally just did it in front of him and he changed his tune right away (though still didn't really help).

Later she had a new better gp as well as a good idea of what chronic issue she had, but he still resisted when she was pushing for a diagnosis. I just came along for one appointment and when he said something like "this isn't a clear sign that you have ", I asked what evidence was he considering that pointed at her not having it. He then admitted he didn't know much about the condition and would do some research. After doing some reading, he was quick to give her a referral to a clinic that specialized in the condition because apparently he needed to be asked about his reasoning from a man to even bother learning about the condition that matched her experience very well and that she was later diagnosed with a severe form of.

I think AIs will be great for diagnosis because they will be able to cut out the biases doctors have against ever suspecting a rare case or giving women any consideration deeper than "stress".

Its not just canadian healthcare.

in America its much the same way.

Doctors are over worked, nurses are under staffed, no one wants to deal with anything that cant be diagnosed and solved in 2 minutes with a hastily written prescription. Even worse if you are poor, not white, have chronic issues, etc.

Last time I changed doctors (which was before covid), It took me 5 fucking years to find a doctor that would take me.. cause most of them wont even see potentially "problematic" patients.

Agreed, if she had insurance. And it didn't get denied by AI.

My wife had a lump in her breast at... I think 27. They sent her to imaging and took a biopsy, realized it was benign, removed it anyways because it was hurting. The parking tickets were our only cost. This should be the norm.

In America, you're more likely to get the test ordered (for a myriad of reasons, billing is one, but also malpractice) but also to have it be denied by insurance.

In a country like Canada, the challenge would be getting the test ordered but once you do, the only question is when it can be done.

That can be effective in the US but would generally not work in Canada where malpractice suits are uncommon.

In Canada you may have better luck pursuing a complaint to the province's licensing authority.

As a healthcare provider (HCP) I would generally try to dissuade patients from exaggerating or overstating. Most doctors and nurses have dealt with enough people that we have a good sense of when someone is exaggerating or even outright lying. Usually it is counterproductive and decreases the chance that your concern or complaint will be addressed appropriately.

I would advocate for centering the conversation on how symptoms have changed / affected your quality of life. A good HCP would make this part of the coversation but I know that not all of my colleagues do so, especially in light of corporate or governmental pressure to see as many patients in as fast as possible.

I feel/have _____ when I do _____ and I'm worried that it will continue, impairing my ability to _____ is a general approach.

From the few people in my vicinity that went to med school (not US), not a lot of emphasis is put on the human side of medecine.

If the worst doctor in the class is good enough to get a license and has great bedside manners, I'd rather have him than a better doctor with a terrible attitude

Oh, no, the diagnosis isn't the bad thing, the process by which the patient received it is the bad thing. Genetic testing is a big decision, since it not only affects the patient's entire life, but also the lives of their family members. It's not something you want the patent to suddenly be informed of out of the blue without even fully understanding that they were being tested in the first place. This patient had no time to prepare for the possibility that she could have a high lifetime cancer risk, and didn't even know what that would mean until she already had the result.

This woman went from a normal college student with normal worries to someone who now has to worry about whether or not she wants to risk keeping her breast tissue to maybe one day breastfeed a baby, or simply feel like herself when she looks in the mirror. She has to think about whether she wants to have kids at all because they'd have a 50% chance of inheriting the same mutation. Every time she touches her own breasts for the rest of her life she's going to be scared that she feels a lump.

It's good that she got a diagnosis, but a lot of people choose not to, or at least choose to have it at a time when they're ready to focus on it, and this woman was denied that. She could have simply gotten more mammograms without testing right now, for example, because her family history put her in higher risk in its own. She wasn't even given a heads up that she might be thrust into this reality - the doctor was thinking about her physical well-being, but ignored her mental well-being. That's what the genetic counselors are supposed to be there for, but he ignored us, and the patent suffered for it. A woman walked into my office thinking everything was fine, and walked out with a world of worries on her shoulders.

Yes, we do things differently. Things are almost always covered by healthcare that are needed. We don't go bankrupt seeing the doctor usually like our southern neighbors might

The big trauma was the lead up to the biopsy where she couldn't get screened because she didn't have money for it, and Planned Parenthood wasn't willing to do the breast cancer screening for someone crossing state lines, and her home state had blocked all Planned Parenthood clinics because America is a conservative hellscape. She moved states, immediately got screened, was found to have breast cancer, got treated, and is honestly extremely relieved that the journey is over. Every so often she talks to my wife about a pic on instagram she found while she was boob shopping because she's trying to decide what size fake boobs she wants

Like. You're absolutely right it was terrifying and stressful, and in many ways continues to be, but the worst parts of the experience are over and she's starting the journey of the best parts at this point