Shownotes
No matter where you search for health information, online, social media, AI, at some point you will inevitably sit face to face with a physician. And communicating what’s happening in your body in a way that your doctor can interpret matters more than most women realize.
In this episode, I'm sharing a simple but powerful communication formula, and some specific language shifts, that have genuinely changed how my symptoms are heard in medical appointments. Because doctors are trained to receive data and find solutions, but we as patients are never taught how to give them that information effectively. And that gap? It costs women time, answers, and care.
I also get personal about the very real history of women's symptoms being dismissed, why so many of us default to either "I'm fine" or a full breakdown, and how both really come from the same place. This episode is practical, validating and offers one more tool to add to your advocacy toolkit. You can find the link for the PDF below.
Timestamps:
[00:00:14] Please Follow the Show!
[00:00:50] Recap of Influencer Episode
[00:01:35] How Doctors Are Trained and the Communication Gap
[00:02:30] The Minimization of Female Symptoms
[00:03:06] Dr Mary Claire and the WW
[00:04:03] Women Are Fine or At A Breaking Point
[00:05:19] Our Responsibility As Patients
[00:06:40] Words That Can Work For You
[00:07:50] Words That Can Undermine You
[00:08:51] 4-Part Communication Formula
[00:10:39] Preparing For Your Next Appointment
[00:11:16] Coming Up: ER Advocacy and Describing Pain
Resources From This Episode:
The Symptom Formula PDF download
The One Page Health Summary download from episode “The One Page That Changes Every Dr. Appointment”
IG Reel Dr. Mary Claire and the "WW"
More from The Hairy Chin:
Transcripts
You're listening to the advocacy series with Spencer Moore on the Hairy Chin podcast. This is where we break down practical self advocacy skills for navigating healthcare in real life. Let's get started. Before I get started with today's episode, I want to mention one quick thing. I'm so appreciative of the amount of women listening to the show. It really does validate this work that we're doing. However, there aren't as many actually following the podcast. And as an independent podcast, it really does help more than you'll ever know to hit that follow button. I'll ask if you're enjoying this content to please follow the show. This small act of support will really aid in the podcast growing and becoming more available to more women. It is beyond appreciated. And now for today's episode. In the last episode, I talked about red flags for health influencers and green flags for health advocates. For me, it was such a needed episode about building trust with the people who give you your health information. No matter where you're searching for it, if it's online, if it's on social media, if it's through AI, whether it's in person or it's telehealth, you'll need to be interacting at some point with a physician. And the way you communicate with that doctor matters more than most women realize. So in this episode, I've got some formulas and some tips, which I promise are not as boring as they sound, to help you communicate more effectively in the times that matter most. Let's talk about doctors for a moment because. They are trained to be solution-based, data-driven practitioners. They receive data, they look for patterns, and they find solutions, whether that's a diagnosis or a test that needs to be ordered or something else that they need to look further into. And when you think about it, doctors are trained to receive information from patients. But on the flip side of that, patients are never trained on how to give that information to their doctors. And once you see and understand that communication gap, you can learn how to fill it and how to show up in your appointments with the information that can actually move your care forward. Earlier in the season, I talked about vulnerability and how it's one of the biggest barriers women face when talking about their bodies and their health in medical appointments. This barrier is very real, it is layered, and it's really important to acknowledge it. And here's another barrier. that women have faced throughout modern medicine, and that is the minimization of their symptoms and their pain. Women lead autoimmune disease 75 % of the time. These are complex conditions that often come with overlapping symptoms that don't fit neatly into a clear diagnosis. And that's part of the reason that these female-led diseases take an average of seven years to diagnose. So what you get is a woman walking into an appointment with a lot going on, not a ton of clarity, and a doctor with very little time to untangle it. I recently shared on my Instagram account, at the Hairy Chin, a clip of an interview with Katie Couric and Dr. Mary Claire. Dr. Mary Claire is quite known these days in the world of female health and menopause. She shared a story from her residency training where the group was discussing a specific female patient who had all these issues, tons of symptoms, and nobody could quite connect. the dots or understand what was really going on. And then the attending physician said, okay, you have a WW. And when asked what that meant, he said, you have a whiny woman. Now, this was some time ago, but to me, having chronic illness and being a woman and having been in the medical system for decades, I really do believe that this is still the perception more times than not. Women come in, They explain themselves and they're labeled whiny and dramatic and it just serves no purpose for anyone. Personally, I can't tell you how many times I've walked into an appointment with so many symptoms or having been really stressed because I was having a really hard time and the doctor looks at me and says, ⁓ hi, how have you been? And I say, ⁓ I've been great. And I know I haven't been great. But it's hard for me to say I've been terrible or I haven't been able to get off the sofa. I can't walk my dog because I don't want to come across as dramatic or weak or whining. And then on the other side, I've been in many appointments where I have just cried the entire time because I have been so exhausted from holding it all in and bearing the weight of illness and pain and overwhelm. Both of these are related to this inability to communicate honestly. It's these all or nothing situations. I'm either fine or I'm at a complete breaking point. And many women face this. Honestly, it's ingrained in so many of us to just carry on until we just can't carry on anymore. And while it's not our fault that many of us use these default methods of communication, it is something that we can absolutely work on. And I want to say this as well. because doctors are trained to extract information from their patients, to ask the questions and to find that data that they need. But as a patient, we do have the responsibility of showing up as well, of having some of that information organized or sorted out before we arrive face to face, because both the doctor and the patient are part of the medical system. And while women have faced so many barriers to their inclusion in those systems, we still very much are part of them and we have to do our parts to show up. Because if we don't, we will absolutely fall through the cracks. So let's talk tools. Because one of the tools that can help so much is a basic communication formula. This formula helps bridge the gaps in how female symptoms are received by their physicians. And before we get into it, I want you to think about describing symptoms. Because the information you need to know is about what is happening in your body. It's about what that actually means and how you can then translate that into a way that your physician can interpret. And I want to tell you now that all of the information we're talking about in this episode will be in a free downloadable PDF. You can find it in the show notes or at theheriton.com. So listen to this calmly and check out that download if you want to review any of this information later on. So let's talk about using specific language because the way you describe your symptoms matter so much. For example, when you say, feel, it's actually quite an emotional verb. It expresses your perception of what's happening. And while using that phrase in conversations with partners and friends, for example, I feel this way, that can be a great way to communicate. But in a medical setting, it doesn't really land as well. Because when you can shift from I feel to I experience, that sounds like what is happening in the body. not just how you're interpreting it. And I have to say, I find it so annoying that such nuance in one word can change how your symptoms are received, but I've found in my own experiences that it really does. Other neutral observable verbs that work well are notice, occurs, worsens, improves, persists, interferes, prevents, limits, increases, decreases, These are the kind of words that get documented and acted on. Now I also want to talk about words that can quietly undermine you because some of these words create uncertainty even when you don't mean them to. Things like I think, I guess, maybe, I feel like something is wrong. When you use these, doctors can interpret them as you're not sure rather than this needs attention. And look, sometimes you genuinely aren't sure and that's okay and it's honest to say that. But if there are times when you can replace doubt with clarity, it can really help. So instead of I feel like something is wrong, try I've noticed symptoms that concern me and that need evaluation. And I want to be compassionate about this because there are patterns of language that women have been taught for so long. Minimizing, apologizing, downplaying, I'm probably overreacting, it's not that bad, I know everyone deals with this. These phrases aren't coming from a bad place, but they are language that is not serving you inside of a medical appointment. And just being aware of that is already a huge step. Okay, so here is the communication formula that you can use to help describe your physical experiences to your physician. We've talked about how doctors are trained and how they are data-driven. So here's a simple way to think about what data they may need. Doctors are usually looking for information such as What is the symptom? When did it begin? What is the frequency and or pattern? And how is it affecting your daily function? So in practice, the formula looks like this. I experience this symptom. It began at this time. It occurs at this frequency or in this pattern. And it affects my ability to function in this way. So for example, I've been experiencing dizziness for about a month. It happens several times a week, especially when I'm moving my head around. It limits my ability to exercise safely. That is so much more information than just saying I'm dizzy. It gives the doctor a clear roadmap of what's happening and what they can actually do about it. And a couple of important reminders before we move on. You don't need to sound overly clinical to be believed you need to sound like you. You don't need to exaggerate your symptoms to be taken seriously, and you don't need to minimize them to be seen as reasonable. Clear communication is a skill, and none of it requires you to change your personality. It just requires describing what is observable, measurable, and impactful. And if you can use that formula like a little math equation, you'll find it really does help you in those moments. You can take all of the information that we've talked about today and use it in your one page health summary when you are preparing for your next appointment. It will be in the show notes to download if you don't have it. You can use that time and space to organize your thoughts. Think of what has been happening in your body and how you can communicate that to your physician. Doing this, small preparation will lessen the weight of having to be on the fly in the actual office. And as I've mentioned before, A little bit of preparation goes a very long way. And now you have another tool in your toolbox to help you actively participate in your healthcare. Now, before I go, I want to tell you a bit about what's coming up in the next few episodes of the podcast. Up next, I have a really wonderful ChinChats episode with Golda Arthur. She's a fellow podcast creator, host, producer, and journalist. She ended up in an emergency room in New York City, smack in the middle of the holiday season with a very severe headache. And she's going to share her experience of how her ER visit unfolded, how she communicated, what worked, what didn't, and what she learned along the way. It's a really powerful real life example of everything we've been talking about in this series so far. And it's a great conversation. I think you'll love this episode. And coming up after that, I'm going to be talking about pain. Now pain is one of the areas where women are minimized the most. Research shows that doctors have not taken women's pain seriously for decades. And there are a lot of fractures in how pain is normalized, how it is scaled and rated, and how it is and isn't treated for women. I'll also be sharing more tools with you so that you can describe your pain in a way that gets heard and taken seriously. It's an episode I think every woman needs to hear. The downloadable PDF for today's episode is available at www.thehairychin.com. It is also below in the notes. It walks through everything we covered today so you can practice before your next appointment. And remember, these are all skills and skills get better with practice. Thanks for being here. And again, thanks for hitting that follow button. I'll see you soon. Thanks for sharing your time with me today. If something in this episode resonated with you, don't just sit with it. Take action. Share the podcast with someone who needs it, leave a review so more women can find these conversations, or sign up for the Harry Chin newsletter to stay up to date on everything we're building. Life takes a village. Thanks for being a part of ours. See you soon.
