Ashanti Daniel is one of those people who knew their career destiny as a child - and then made it come to fruition. As a nurse, Ashanti had the inside view of how the health care system operates - so when she got very sick and was hospitalized multiple times, she thought that being a health care worker would afford her legitimacy in the eyes of her medical peers.
But Ashanti quickly discovered that being a black woman with ‘normal’ results from routine medical tests, trumped years of working as a health care professional.
While medical gaslighting is endemic throughout the health care system, it is especially evident if you have a disease that has no biomarkers, and you are a female of colour. Ask any one with a complex chronic illness, and you will most assuredly hear a story of doctors denying the patient experience of their own body, and instead attribute physical symptoms to psychological causes. And this is based on nothing except the doctor’s biases, prejudices and ego. For black female patients with a complex disease, it could be argued that the operationalized ‘standard of care’ is gaslighting.
As Ashanti experienced, a doctor can write whatever they want about a patient in the medical records. It doesn’t have to be true. The amount of power doctors wield over people is the power of life and death. At their whim, they can deny testing, ignore a diagnosis, and label a person as mentally ill. In some jurisdictions, doctors can have a person committed to a mental hospital against their will.
The medical system is a pathological mess, driven and controlled by a god complex culture. Until doctors change their culture, there will continue to be -- as Long COVID patients are discovering en masse -- many doctors that inflict great harm by disbelieving patients.
Connect with Ashanti Daniel, RN
Instagram: @AshantiRN
Twitter: @AshantiRN
Linktr.ee: www.Linktr.ee/AshantiRN
Be a podcast patron
Support Medical Error Interviews on Patreon by becoming a Patron for $2 / month for audio versions.
Premium Patrons get access to video versions of podcasts for $5 / month.
Be my Guest
I am always looking for guests to share their medical error experiences so we help bring awareness and make patients safer.
If you are a survivor, a victim’s surviving family member, a health care worker, advocate, researcher or policy maker and you would like to share your experiences, please send me an email with a brief description: RemediesPodcast@gmail.com
Need a Counsellor?
Like me, many of my clients at Remedies Counseling have experienced the often devastating effects of medical error.
If you need a counsellor for your experience with medical error, or living with a chronic illness(es), I offer online video counseling appointments.
**For my health and life balance, I limit my number of counseling clients.**
Email me to learn more or book an appointment: RemediesOnlineCounseling@gmail.com
Scott Simpson:
Counsellor + Patient Advocate + (former) Triathlete
I am a counsellor, patient advocate, and - before I became sick and disabled - a passionate triathlete. Work hard. Train hard. Rest hard.
I have been living with HIV since 1998. I was the first person living with HIV to compete at the triathlon world championships.
Thanks to research and access to medications, HIV is not a problem in my life.
I have been living with ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) since 2012, and thanks in part to medical error, it is a big problem in my life.
Counseling / Research
I first became aware of the ubiquitousness of medical error during a decade of community based research working with the HIV Prevention Lab at Ryerson University, where I co-authored two research papers on a counseling intervention for people living with HIV, here and here.
Patient participants would often report varying degrees of medical neglect, error and harms as part of their counseling sessions.
Patient Advocacy
I am co-founder of the ME patient advocacy non-profit Millions Missing Canada, and on the Executive Committee of the Interdisciplinary Canadian Collaborative Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Research Network.
I am also a patient advisor for Health Quality Ontario’s Patient and Family Advisory Council, and member of Patients for Patient Safety Canada.
Medical Error Interviews podcast and vidcast emerged to give voice to victims, witnesses and participants in this hidden epidemic so we can create change toward a safer health care system.
My golden retriever Gladys is a constant source of love and joy. I hope to be well enough again one day to race triathlons again. Or even shovel the snow off the sidewalk.
Laura Johnson: Grievous medical incompetence kills her father...and how many more?
Carol Sunnucks: The joy of birth, the harm of medicine, the betrayal by the systems
Andy McCulloch’s daughter Colette: Why Can’t You Hear Me? An inquest into medical negligence
Michelle Hedgcoth: How transvaginal mesh ruined my body and my career - but not my spirit
Marc - FQID: Antibiotic fluoroquinolones can cause toxicity and severely injury people: FluoroQuinolone Induced Disability
Marcus Sedgwick: Author of ‘All In Your Head’ - What happens when your doctor doesn’t believe you
Alice Urbino: scam ‘lightning process’ causes internalized gaslighting - beware of charlatans
Ryan Clark: Keep your hair, ruin your life -- how the hair growth medication Propecia broke his body: Post Finasteride Syndrome
Sally Maddocks: Removing implanted plastic mesh from organs is like removing gum from hair
Dr Simon Breidert: How Post Finasteride Syndrome changed his view of his specialty: psychosomatic medicine
Shirley Barker, RN: Witnessing a police sheriff’s death by physician -- and telling the truth
Dana Parish: Co-author of Chronic: The Hidden Cause of the Autoimmune Pandemic
Denise Crawley: To err is human: A nurse shares her medical errors and how the system responded
Maya Dusenbery: Author of "Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick"
Anton for Holger Klintenberg: #HelpHolgerNow: “We’re fighting for his life” against the medical system
Sarah Colero: “Owe my life to medical cannabis” -- life with brain surgeries, migraines and opioids
Maija Haavisto: Medical Writer talks about Continuous Medical Trauma and MEcfs and Long Covid (aka post Covid syndrome)
Jessica Pin: My labia minora removed without my consent - the pathologization of female sexuality
Jeanne McArdle: My thyroid grew back - “impossible” says the doctor - and other tales of medical gaslighting
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Relaxback UK Show
Good Nurse Bad Nurse
On Call With Dr. Anselm Anyoha
The Doctor’s Farmacy with Mark Hyman, M.D.
The Peter Attia Drive