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Battling Medical Gaslighting for Empowered Healthcare
Increasingly, women are being told that their health symptoms are simply “all in their head,” a disturbing trend known as medical gaslighting. Leading the charge against this insidious issue is Health+Plus, a holistic medicine provider pioneering an initiative focused on listening to patients, validating their experiences, and providing comprehensive evaluations.
This has happened to my spouse over the years. She told me that she has had issues she felt were pooh-poohed or flat-out ignored. I did some digging into this with my friend, Dr. David Clark, owner and chief provider of Health+Plus Clinic in Oak Grove, Missouri, just outside Kansas City. He had some strong opinions.
“A recent survey uncovered a staggering statistic: 71% of women have been told by a physician that their symptoms were merely imagined,” Dr. Clark said. “The phenomenon, known as medical gaslighting, is a form of psychological manipulation in which a patient’s symptoms and concerns are dismissed or downplayed.”
“Health+Plus firmly rejects this practice. It has no place in medicine,” he said. Instead, his facility insists on empowering patients, offering a platform where their concerns are taken seriously, and their symptoms thoroughly investigated.
