Medical Gaslighting Doesn’t Stop in the Exam Room: How to Trust Yourself and Build the Right Care Team with Dr. Efrat LaMandre | E186

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In this deeply personal episode of Made for Health, Dr. Aaron Hartman sits down with Dr. Efrat “Dr. E” LaMandre, a family nurse practitioner, PhD in Integrative Medicine, host of the Medical Disruptor podcast, and a leading voice on medical gaslighting.

What begins as a conversation about why patients feel dismissed when their tests come back “normal” becomes something much more personal. Dr. E shares that she was recently diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer after months of back pain that she repeatedly minimized herself. The experience transformed her from a clinician who teaches patient advocacy into a patient navigating the healthcare system firsthand. Pasted text

Together, Dr. Hartman and Dr. E explore a rarely discussed side of medical gaslighting: the ways patients can begin gaslighting themselves. We may apologize for taking a clinician’s time, downplay symptoms, assume normal tests mean nothing is wrong, or ignore the internal sense that something has changed.

Their message is not to reject conventional medicine. It is to understand what each clinician can and cannot provide, continue investigating when symptoms persist, and build a healthcare team capable of looking at the whole picture.

Key Topics Covered

What medical gaslighting actually meansWhy normal laboratory results do not automatically mean a patient feels wellWhy patients may feel dismissed even by well-intentioned cliniciansPopulations most affected by medical gaslightingWhy women may be especially likely to minimize their symptomsFatigue, migrating pain, unusual sensations, and GI complaints that can be difficult to fit into conventional diagnostic categoriesThe habit of “pre-apologizing” before describing symptomsHow patients learn to become “good patients”Why people sometimes trust test results more than their own bodily experienceIntuition as a form of pattern recognitionThe importance of knowing when something is different from your normalWhy self-advocacy does not mean rejecting doctorsUnderstanding the limitations of individual medical specialtiesWhy conventional testing still mattersHow to build a multidisciplinary healthcare teamChoosing clinicians and researchers over unq