You're listening to That's Not Very Ladylike, the show where every week we start with one rule, ladies don't, and then we do it anyway. You're listening to That's Not Very Ladylike, the show where every week we start with one rule, ladies don't, and then we do it anyway. Welcome back to That's Not Very Ladylike. I'm That Hormone Girl, Tracy Willingham and today we are naming a rule that has kept women sitting in exam rooms they should have walked out of years ago. Ladies don't fire their doctors they just cancel their follow-up.
Tracey:And that's the rule, right? We do not fire them. We do not say the words. We do not look, let's be honest most of the time a man with a prescription pad in the eye, but ladies too. But we do not tell them, Hey, you're bad at your job.
Tracey:No. What we do is we just cancel that follow-up and we let that referral expire. We tell the front desk, I got to check my calendar. And then we never call back. We fire them the way we've been taught to do.
Tracey:And it's everything hard, right? Do it quietly, politely. And how about you blame yourself the whole way out the door? So today, we're gonna talk about why that is, what it costs you, and why firing your doctor out loud on purpose is one of the most powerful things you will ever do for your own body. And let me tell y'all, I'm going to rein myself in because I could probably talk five hours about this.
Tracey:I'm very passionate about this. I spend a lot of time working with women and telling them you've got to fire that doctor. And the reason I think this is important is when we all ghost, right? When we all ghost our doctors that allows them to continue in the same pattern that they've always done with no feedback. Some don't care about our feedback but I do believe some doctors would be surprised if we all were just honest enough to say I'm firing you and here's the reason.
Tracey:We aren't allowing the system to be better when we just ghost. So, and listen, this system has a lot of problems. But let's get to the story because I've always got a story for you and I am going to tell you about the time I fired a doctor. So for a while, I kept going to this man because several of my friends were and I'm going say the first couple of visits, I really liked him. A little more holistic, but my insurance took it.
Tracey:So I was like, what? What in the how are you sneaking past this guy? So I was tickled. I was thrilled to see him. And then it was like, I don't know, the fourth or fifth visit in that I noticed that he started to talk to me like I was a child.
Tracey:Every single visit, no matter why I was there, it always came back to my weight. Always. And not in the way a doctor would be like, Hey, let's work on this together. Let's help you be healthier. No, it was always, you've got a cold?
Tracey:Probably your weight. You've got a cut on your leg? I bet it's your weight. It wasn't about my labs, not about my symptoms, not the actual reason I made the appointment. And I got brave enough to finally tell one of my friends who was seeing him at the same time, I'm said, I'm not going back.
Tracey:And I told her, he's always talking about my weight. And she said, girl, I just stopped going to him because the last time I was in, he grabbed part of my body and said, what when are we gonna address this? Let that sit for a minute. This man, that's not part of the medical exam. You can listen to my heart.
Tracey:You can look down my throat. You can have me say, Ah. You don't need to be touching any part of my body to jiggle it and shame me. So here's the part that still gets me. He would name it, he would blame it on the weight or whatever blah blah he wanted and he would make the whole conversation.
Tracey:And then I started to realize you're offering me nothing. No plan, no support, no how, no what would actually help you feel better and be healthy. Just the problem. Hand it to me like a verdict over and over as if I didn't already know, own a mirror in a scale and a lifetime of being told the same thing. And like, I wouldn't want to figure out how to be healthier.
Tracey:But also, maybe if I'm here for a cold today, could we address the cold? Next time we can talk about some tips you got for me to live healthier. So I would try to talk. I'd try to say, Well, you know, that's not what I'm here for. Or, Can we look at what's actually going on?
Tracey:And he would cut me off, talk over me, and move on. And I walked out of that office smaller and smaller every single time. He made me feel worse about myself. Then he called it care. And then here's the kicker, guys.
Tracey:He charged me and my insurance for that. I paid someone to verbally abuse me. Right? How many of you, just think about that, have you paid for a doctor to make excuses, deny you the answers, make you feel worse about yourself? We wouldn't do that at a restaurant.
Tracey:You wouldn't keep going back to a restaurant that brings you burnt food and be like, well, okay, see you next time. Thanks. We don't do that, but we do it with our doctors. So one day I got brave enough and I fired him. And I mean fired.
Tracey:I don't mean ghost. And you want to know how I did it being a whole grown woman with a health care background? The first time I canceled the follow-up, I never rebooked and that was it. That was my brave stand. I ghosted him like a bad date and told myself, Well, you know, just go find somebody else.
Tracey:And I want you to sit with that because I share that because if I did it quietly, ashamed, telling nobody, and I work in the health care system, then a lot of you are doing it right now, too. But then I decided I am doing not only myself a disservice, I'm doing him a disservice in the hopes that maybe he'll read my feedback, but I am also doing disservice to all my fellow sisters who are about to go see this man. So I wasn't gonna waste my money with an appointment, but guess what I've got? I've got my medical chart, and I sent an email with all of my feedback. Now, did I get a response?
Tracey:Absolutely not. Is it part of my medical file? It sure is, and I love that. I love that it lives in there because now I have proof that I have told you how you failed me as a patient. So maybe if it's like, I can't say it to their face, Tracy, consider the impact of sending an email that is part of your medical chart.
Tracey:Okay, I'm going to stop there because you can feel it, right? You can feel it. I'm getting jazzed up. So we're not even to the why this should piss you off section and I'm already there. So let's look at the cost because this rule is actually costing us.
Tracey:So when a doctor makes anything that you're not there for the entire appointment, real things get missed. And there's a name for this in research. So it's called diagnostic overshadowing. Yeah, look at this. We're learning fancy words.
Tracey:We can now go in our doctors and be like, excuse me, don't diagnostically overshadow me. What it means is everything you walk in with gets blamed on your body size. So the actual problem, the thyroid, the hormones, the pain, the thing that has a name and a treatment, it never actually gets looked at. Women actually get sent home with instructions to lose weight while a diagnosable condition sits there untouched. Let that sit for a minute.
Tracey:That's bullshit, right? And when you feel judged in that room, you do exactly what I did, right? You just stop going. I mean, why are we going to go back to that? The research on this is consistent.
Tracey:People who feel shamed about anything, but especially like even their weight at the doctor, delay care, cancel appointments, and avoid the whole system for years. Now, ideally, I've got to add this in, the healthcare system, the way we like to look at it is it should be wellness centered. Help me be proactive. We have to be honest about at least what the American healthcare system is. It is reactive.
Tracey:Tell me what hurts, tell me what happened, not, Oh, you might have heart disease, how can we prevent that? Come see me when you're actually having the heart attack. That's a problem. So these dismissals, they don't just hurt your feelings, right? It quietly pulls you out of your own health care at the exact moment your body needs you to be paying attention, showing up, speaking up.
Tracey:And perimenopause, heart health, everything we talk about on this show, all missed because somebody has made the room feel unsafe. And we did a sensible thing, right? We left. We didn't sit there and continue taking it. That is the cost.
Tracey:It is not just the appointment one bad afternoon. It is years that it is costing us. So we have to look at the historical how deep does this go? And I don't even have to tell this, I mean, this is not new, right? This is super old.
Tracey:Medicine has a long documented history of not believing women. For most of it, whatever we came in with got filed under emotional, hysterical, or dramatic. As we've talked about in other episodes, the word hysteria literally comes from the Greek word for womb, uterus. They named an entire category of dismissal after our bodies. And somewhere along the way, weight and some of these other hormone health, it all became the modern version of that.
Tracey:The all purpose explanation. This is a moral failing that I can see right in front of me. Well, if she would just lose the weight, her heart would be happier. Her colon would be happier. Her blah, blah, blah.
Tracey:Yeah, we'd all be happier. But there's a lot of factors that go into why we go to see the doctor outside of weight. That was just my example. It lets a provider feel like they have addressed something without doing a single hard thing. I check the box.
Tracey:I know insurance will pay me for that. Have a good day. Now, disclaimer. Are all doctors like this? No.
Tracey:I actually have a few good doctors and bless them, but guess what? They're over scheduled. And you know what I mean? I either wait an hour to see them or I wait six months to see them. That's the other problem we have.
Tracey:When you're good and you do it right, people know. Now it takes me forever to see you. Doctor. Bullshit, no problem tomorrow. So, as always, I feel like we have to honor this in history.
Tracey:It makes us uncomfortable. Some of you probably unsubscribe but guess what? End of the day, I don't give a shit because we have to acknowledge this. It is worse the further you get from thin, white, and young. Okay?
Tracey:So black women in this country are dismissed more, believed less, and they have their own pain taken less seriously by data. And I have heard these personal stories from my friends. I'm not making this up. Women of color, women in larger bodies, older women, The dismissals begin to stack. So if you have felt this in your bones your whole life, you are not imagining it and you are not being sensitive.
Tracey:You have been reading the room correctly all along. So if this could be said, it's going to sound like this: I'm allowed to fire a doctor who will not listen to me. I'm allowed to end an appointment that is going nowhere. I am allowed to ask for my medical records and walk them across town. I am allowed to say, I did not come here to talk about blank, my weight, my stress, my whatever.
Tracey:Please look at what I actually asked about. Here's one of my favorite ladies. Get ready. I am allowed to interrupt the man who keeps interrupting me. Hell yeah, you can and you better.
Tracey:I am allowed to be a difficult patient if difficult is what it takes to be heard. Don't you love that? Okay, I'll do another podcast on that one because that word difficult patient, that's a whole another one. We're gonna have a whole doctor series on here. By the end of this, I'm going to piss off a few doctors, which leads great into why this should piss you off.
Tracey:Because I need you to get a little angry with me. If you're not there already, lean in. Let's do this. You are the one paying for this service. You.
Tracey:They are not doing you a favor, right? This is not a gift that they are bestowing to you from on high. It is a service that you purchased with your own money, with your own time, and with your own body on the line. You would fire a contractor who ignored you and left the job half done. You would fire a hairdresser who talked over you and gave you something you did not ask for, but a damn doctor gets to shame you, cut you off, and skip the actual work.
Tracey:And we have been trained to say thank you and rebook. That is the definition of insanity. The self blame is the con of this whole thing. This should piss you off because they taught us that a good patient is quiet, grateful, compliant, and you are patient. Right?
Tracey:You should be patient. You should accept what I give you. That is not a good patient. That's a convenient one. And convenient for you is not the same as good for you, right?
Tracey:Hear me on this. That should piss you off. So how do you know if this is you? You dread the appointment before you even go. You rehearse what you're going to say in the car, and then in the appointment, you say none of it.
Tracey:You leave feeling worse about yourself than when you walked in. You have canceled a follow-up appointment and told yourself, It's just my schedule. You have a doctor right now you have been quietly avoiding instead of just ending it. You catch yourself defending the doctor. They're not that bad.
Tracey:They're just maybe old school. I bet they mean well. If even one of those landed, this is you. Okay? And you hear me on this.
Tracey:If you hear nothing else, you are allowed to be done with that individual. If you need permission, permission granted my friend. So here's your reflection for the week. How do I want you to take care of yourself? So I'm not going to tell you to storm in and make a scene, right?
Tracey:Because I mean I would love to and if you want to do it, okay? But I am gonna tell you to make it real. And if there is a doctor that you have been ghosting, I just if you can just start by naming it to yourself first. Say it out loud in your own kitchen. I fired him.
Tracey:Not I'm too busy. I fired them. And I had every right to. And then, when you're ready, find the next one on purpose. Interview them like they work for you because guess what?
Tracey:They do. You are paying for a service. Right? Have we got that? You are not going to go to a restaurant and accept crappy food.
Tracey:You're not going to go to Target and buy clothes with holes in it. We have boundaries, but not with our doctors. You work for me. I pay you. I pay for insurance that pays you.
Tracey:So don't even try to say I have insurance. I pay for that. I work for that. You owe me a service. So you are allowed to fire your doctor out loud on purpose.
Tracey:Okay? So in closing, let me leave you with this this week because as I said, I'm going rein myself in. But if any of you are local to Fort Worth and you want to go have cocktails and talk more, let's go. I am fired up. That doctor had letters after their name and a wall full of diplomas, and they still could not do the one thing the job actually requires: they could not listen to a woman.
Tracey:And for a while, I let that diploma outrank my own body. I let that opinion of my weight matter more than my knowing deep down what my body is feeling, what feels wrong and different, and that I deserve better than what was given to me in that room. Not anymore. Your body is not a problem to be managed by someone who will not even look up from the chart. Your body is not to be managed by someone who says there's not a checkbox for that in here.
Tracey:That's not my problem. I'm here to see you about a medical issue. You figure it out. Your body is the only one you get and you are its fiercest advocate. Whether anyone in a white coat ever gives you permission or not, I am telling you right now, it is your body, and you are the fiercest advocate for that nobody else is going to give a shit.
Tracey:Nobody else is going to stand up for you. So fire the ones who make you shrink. Fire the ones who talk over you. Fire the ones who hand you shame and call it a treatment plan. And I want you to do it out loud.
Tracey:And I want you to do it on purpose. And I want you to take someone with you if you need someone. I want you to ask a friend if you aren't the one that can speak it. Let somebody, but somebody do it out loud and do it on purpose. And don't you dare apologize on your way out.
Tracey:You have nothing to apologize for. You need help with your body. You are paying for that help. Because here's what I want you to remember: Because a lady stays quiet. A lady stays grateful.
Tracey:And a lady re books that appointment with the physician who has failed us. But you? You're not doing that anymore and that's the most unladylike thing of episode lit a fire, pushed your buttons, or called a little BS on the stories we've been sold, share it with another woman who's tired of being told to tone it down, smile more, or play nice, and help a girl out by making sure you subscribe, leave a quick review, and catch me on Instagram at that hormone girl. And until next time, keep getting loud, messy, and raising hell because being ladylike is overrated.