You've been to multiple doctors. You've described your symptoms clearly. You've done everything right. Yet somehow, you keep walking out of appointments feeling unheard, dismissed, and increasingly desperate.
This isn't just frustrating—it's a widespread crisis in healthcare that's leaving patients suffering for years while searching for answers.
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The average rare disease patient sees 7+ doctors over 4+ years before receiving an accurate diagnosis.
That's four years of suffering. Four years of being told "everything looks normal." Four years of your life on hold while you fight to be believed.
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But it's not just rare disease patients facing this challenge:
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67% of patients
Have their physical symptoms attributed to mental health conditions without proper testing.
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1 in 3 patients
Face systematic healthcare dismissal and feel they must "fight" to receive appropriate medical care.
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These aren't just numbers—they represent millions of people whose lives are impacted by medical dismissal every single day.
Medical dismissal happens when healthcare providers minimize, ignore, or attribute your symptoms to causes without proper investigation. It often sounds like:
"Your tests came back normal, so there's nothing wrong."
"Have you considered that this might be anxiety?"
"You're too young to have these problems."
"Maybe you should try losing some weight first."
"It's probably just stress."
Each of these statements dismisses your lived experience and delays proper diagnosis and treatment.
When doctors don't listen, the impact extends far beyond physical symptoms:
Repeated dismissal creates a form of medical trauma. Patients develop anxiety before appointments, experience PTSD-like symptoms related to healthcare settings, and begin doubting their own experiences—a phenomenon known as medical gaslighting.