Takeaway
To optimize care, stay curious about the patient's story—sustained attention can uncover diagnoses that may have been missed for years.
Lifelong learning in clinical excellence | March 12, 2026 | 2 min read
By Ilana Jacquelin, patient advocate and marketing strategist, Smarter Patients
For patients seeking a diagnosis, they have a straightforward process:
Write down symptoms.
Make an appointment.
Show up.
Explain what’s wrong.
At least, that’s how it made sense to me as a teenager living with an undiagnosed disease. In my mind, what I brought to the doctors was clear. From birth onward, I’d had constant and severe infections, many resistant to antibiotics. I’d been hospitalized more times than I could count. I kept my lab results carefully organized and brought them to appointments like exhibits in a trial.
I believed that if I presented the information clearly, the physicians would connect the dots. Instead, I was often asked a different question. “Is it possible you’re just anxious?”
When evidence isn’t the problem
The clinicians I saw were polite and professional. But one after the other failed to explain why I was so sick. I assumed that if no one had figured it out, there probably wasn’t an answer. And so the conversation shifted. Instead of exploring the evidence in front of them, the symptoms I described—delivered by a teenage girl—were redirected back toward me. Anxiety. Depression. Stress. The issue wasn’t a lack of information. The issue was that the information was coming from a patient whose experience seemed easier to reinterpret than investigate.
What medical gaslighting feels like
Medical gaslighting doesn’t usually happen through dramatic confrontation. More often, it’s subtle—a question that reframes physical symptoms as emotional ones, a raised eyebrow, a conclusion reached a little too quickly. For patients, repeated experiences like this change their behavior. They begin to doubt themselves. They feel embarrassed by their symptoms. They stop bringing up details that might help explain what’s happening.
I certainly did. Over time, I became ashamed of my body—and ashamed that I seemed unable to handle what doctors implied was a normal one. Except that my body wasn’t normal. Years later, I was diagnosed with hypogammaglobulinemia, a primary immune deficiency that explained the infections that had shaped my entire childhood. The evidence had been there all along. What was missing wasn’t data—it was sustained curiosity about the patient presenting it.
Curiosity is part of exceptional care
Patients arrive in the exam room with years of lived experience. That perspective doesn’t replace clinical data, but it does complement it. When clinicians stay curious about a patient’s story—perhaps especially when the diagnosis isn’t immediately obvious—they gather critical information that can be the missing piece.
How healthcare professionals can avoid gaslighting:
1. Be curious.
Ask patients what patterns they’ve noticed in their symptoms.
2. Acknowledge uncertainty.
Saying, “I don’t know yet, but we’ll keep investigating,” builds trust.
3. Avoid defaulting to psychological explanations.
Mental health conditions are real, but they shouldn’t become a shortcut when symptoms are unexplained.
4. Pause before ending the visit.
A simple “Is there anything I might have missed?” can surface key details.
5. Remember that patients bring data.
Their lived experience often holds clues that tests alone can’t reveal.
This piece expresses the views solely of the author. It does not necessarily represent the views of any organization, including Johns Hopkins Medicine.