What is medical gaslighting? What women should know — and how to advocate for yourself
More women than men feel as though their concerns are dismissed in health-care settings. An expert shares how to push back.
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The University of Windsor is shedding light on medical gaslighting in the Canadian health-care system as part of a new study. Marissa Rakus, a Ph.D student and the study's coordinator, is looking to speak to women aged 18 and over who are willing to share their experiences with health-care providers who have ignored, doubted or invalidated their concerns.
"This kind of thing can lead to death," said Rakus in an interview with Global News.
Rakus's study will gather first-hand accounts of medical gaslighting to better understand its impacts on patients.
"You feel like you're going crazy, you're getting anxious, depressed, isolated from those around you because you're in so much pain or whatever the situation may be leading to trauma, too," Rakus explained.
The study, which is accepting participants digitally until February, ultimately seeks to explore strategies for health-care reform. Rakus, who is in the process of earning her Ph.D in social psychology, said health-care providers need to be more open and receptive to patients and their concerns.
"It's not all about actually giving a diagnosis or having an answer for them. It's, 'I hear you, I'm listening to you and I will be on this journey with you to help try and figure it out,'" she said.
Why are women more likely to face medical gaslighting?
Women are more likely to be misdiagnosed than men across a variety of ailments. The stats, and experiences, are even worse for women of colour who often face discrimination and gaslighting in even larger numbers.
In 2022, tennis star Serena Williams shared her own experience of mistreatment within the health-care system after the birth of her first child in 2017. Williams, who had a history of blood clots, was forced to advocate for herself when she found herself in excruciating pain, with nurses who wouldn't listen to her ask for a heparin drip, a drug used to prevent blood clots. Williams ended up having a life-threatening blood clot in one of her arteries.
Despite this pattern, in 2020, the Canadian Institute of Health Research dedicated only seven per cent of funding to women's health research.
"Feeling overlooked by the health-care system is something that all women encounter," said Cally Wesson, CEO and President of BC Women's Health Foundation in a previous interview with Yahoo Canada. "The sort of gaslighting when you have symptoms you're sometimes told , 'Go home, have a glass of wine,' when in actual fact your symptoms are real and valid."
The reason why this medical gaslighting can't necessarily be linked to one thing is yet another byproduct of a patriarchal western society, one that has historically favoured men and impacted various social systems.
Have you been misled or gaslit by a doctor? Contact us at yahoo.canada.lifestyle.editors@yahooinc.com and you could be featured in an upcoming Yahoo Canada article.
But the consequences of staying silent can be dire — and even deadly. In March 2023, Allison Holthoff, an Amherst, N.S., resident, died after reportedly waiting in the ER for more than six hours — all while her condition rapidly deteriorated.
Holthoff's death came two years after the 2021 death of Mireille Mdjomouo in a Quebec hospital. The 44-year-old woman shared her experience of mistreatment in an online video, claiming staff at her Quebec hospital were administering penicillin, despite the fact she was allergic (Mdjomouo died of natural causes, per a coroner's report). And in October 2020, Joyce Echaquan, an Indigenous woman in Quebec, died after a video of of herself being mistreated and insulted by hospital staff went viral.
How can I advocate for myself during a doctor's appointment?
When it comes to advocating for yourself, Wesson advised women to arm themselves with as much factual info as they can before going into their appointment.
Do your research, ask questions and push back
"Make sure you're aware of the good sources of true information," she said. "Don't rely on Doctor Google, but rely on the information that's on some of the research institute websites." Arming yourself means you can feel prepared to ask questions and push back if you feel like your concerns aren't being heard or validated.
Prioritize your concerns and ask for a second — or third — opinion
Given the state of the overworked health-care system in Canada right now, experts also suggest prioritizing your concerns, focusing on your most urgent concerns to be addressed first. And despite any claims from a doctor that "everything is fine," don't be afraid to ask for a second or even a third opinion with another health-care expert.
Find your village
Finally, Wesson advised surrounding yourself with a network of people to talk about your health and individual experiences, as a way to normalize the conversations and, in essence, the experience. That might include, for example, conversations around menopause.
"Often, women are ashamed or don't want to talk about their symptoms," Wesson said. "But yes, let's talk about it, because often if you have those conversations, you can at least have that validation of, beyond hot flashes, [saying], 'Oh, yeah, I'm experiencing that," with friends. Those are things that are really, very important going forward if we're going to change the landscape of women's health."
The tide is changing when it comes to misogyny in health care, even if incrementally so. Established as a combined effort between Alberta Women's Health Foundation, BC Women's Health Foundation and Women's College Hospital Foundation, the Women's Health Collective Canada is a network aimed at bringing data and care to Canadian women across the country. It includes funding medical research that addresses the needs of women and broadening the scope of women's health programs.
At BC Women's Hospital, they're creating a program in Midwife Women's Health centred around menopause. The program will eventually train physicians to do a rotation in menopause, but more importantly research will establish a centre of excellence — a reputable and specialized space — in the country.
"Let's say you do have a doctor in Edmonton that has a patient who is presenting really complex symptoms. They have somewhere that they can go as a resource," Wesson said. But as she noted, there's still a way to go.
"Women need to come together to really push that women's health research topics should be in the forefront," Wesson added. "As women, we often put our families first, put our careers first, everything, and we often don't take care of ourselves. In some ways, that might be a metaphor, so to speak, of why women's health research hasn't taken that profile that's needed."
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