<\/p>\n
If you find yourself telling a patient \u2018It\u2019s normal\u2019 during a consultation, you might want to revisit that conversation. Academics from the Rady School of Management, UCSD reported this week that well-meaning reassurance by doctors can backfire.<\/p>\n
PhD student Seyi Lawal describes in a research article published in Nature Human Behaviour,<\/a><\/em> how she found that when a doctor reassures a patient that an experience is normal, many patients interpret that as a dismissive cue to not seek further treatment.<\/p>\n Clinicians, it\u2019s time to rethink your approach to patient anxiety about their symptoms or prognosis. Providing a quick reassurance that your patient is experiencing something many people have gone through before may seem to you like a simple way to reassure them that they can be treated. To the patient, however, the message \u2018It\u2019s normal\u2019 is oft received as \u2018Don\u2019t make a fuss\u2019 or worse, \u2018This isn\u2019t worth my time\u2019.<\/p>\n \u2018Providers expected that normalizing a patient\u2019s symptoms would increase their treatment likelihood, or, at worst, have no impact, but patients actually reacted in the opposite way,\u2019 Laval explained to UCSD\u2019s press office. Lawal and her colleagues conducted fourteen studies involving 9,371 participants to better understand why some patients don\u2019t pursue treatment for ongoing medical conditions after seeing their doctor. The results suggest that clinicians could do with some bedside manner refreshers<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lawal was prompted to look into why patients report feeling dismissed or \u2018gaslit\u2019 by medical professionals after interviewing women about their experiences around menopause care.<\/p>\n This problem is not localized to the US either. Women in the UK say, the feeling of being minimized, discounted or gaslit is common to many attempting to access health care. Likewise, Canadian patients living with chronic pain report feelings of invalidation and a lack of trust in health care providers after unfortunate experiences<\/a> with conventional medical providers.<\/p>\n Lawal recounts how some of the patients she interviewed said they felt dismissed after being told menopause symptoms that were interfering with their daily life were a \u2018normal part of aging\u2019. This got her thinking, were the physicians and patients simply misunderstanding each other<\/a>?<\/p>\n Lawal and her colleagues recruited over 9000 doctors and members of the public to participate in a series of experiments. The researchers created a set of realistic medical scenarios where a patient described their symptoms and a doctor advised that either the symptoms were \u2018normal\u2019 or did not. The medical scenarios covered a range of health complaints, including elevated blood glucose levels, seasonal allergies, dental pain, migraines and menopause.<\/p>\n The researchers asked members of the public to read through the scenarios and asked how they interpreted the exchange. Would they seek treatment through follow up care? The team also questioned doctors as to how they expected patients to react. Then they compared the doctor\u2019s expectations and the patient\u2019s willingness to pursue follow up care.<\/p>\n There was, they discovered, a disconnect between what doctors thought they were conveying and what patients understood. In short, they found that when doctors told patients that a symptom or health complaint was \u201cnormal\u201d, members of the public were less likely to say they would pursue medical treatment for the problem.<\/p>\n As senior author On Amir explained in the press release, \u2018Doctors usually have a noble goal. They mean to ease anxiety, but somehow it backfires,\u2019 he continued: \u2018Doctors shouldn\u2019t stop reassuring patients. But they should make their meaning unmistakable.\u2019<\/p>\n So what does that mean in practice? For doctors, if you tell a patient something is normal, pair it with an explicit recommendation for treatment. Make sure that your patient understands that you intend \u2018normal\u2019 as in, you see it often, not that they shouldn\u2019t be complaining.<\/p>\n For patients, if your doctor tells you a symptom or condition is normal, don\u2019t assume they mean it\u2019s not worth treating.<\/p>\n Why a doctor saying \u201cit\u2019s normal\u201d can backfire. EurekAlert! Accessed August 11, 2026. https:\/\/www.eurekalert.org\/news-releases\/1139392<\/a><\/p>\n Lawal S, Chew B, Amir O. Reassurance through normalization inadvertently suppresses treatment. Nat Hum Behav<\/em>. Published online August 10, 2026:1-13. doi:10.1038\/s41562-026-02542-0<\/a><\/p>\n C\u00f4t\u00e9 CI. Enacting Epistemic Justice to Promote Safer Care for People Living with Chronic Pain\u202f: A Clinician\u2019s Guide to Action. J Bioeth Inq<\/em>. Published online May 11, 2026. doi:10.1007\/s11673-025-10543-3<\/a><\/p>\n Fuss A, Jagielski CH, Taft T. We didn\u2019t start the fire\u2026or did we?\u2014a narrative review of medical gaslighting and introduction to medical invalidation. Transl Gastroenterol Hepatol<\/em>. 2024;9:73. doi:10.21037\/tgh-24-26<\/a><\/p>\n Kokab F, Williams SJ, Hussain N, Gale N. From \u201cdismissal\u201d to \u201cmedical gaslighting\u201d: A literature review of women\u2019s experiences of reproductive health services in the UK. Midwifery<\/em>. 2026;159:104823. doi:10.1016\/j.midw.2026.104823<\/a>1.<\/p>\n Pickern JS, Ledford VA. Using the theory of communicative disenfranchisement to illuminate the nature and consequences of women\u2019s experiences with medical gaslighting as told through TikTok narratives. Patient Educ Couns<\/em>. 2026;150:109719. doi:10.1016\/j.pec.2026.109719<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you find yourself telling a patient \u2018It\u2019s normal\u2019 during a consultation, you might want to revisit that conversation. Academics from the Rady School of Management, UCSD reported this week that well-meaning reassurance by doctors can backfire. PhD student Seyi Lawal describes in a research article published in Nature Human Behaviour, how she found that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[4375,4439,4438,2350,2424],"class_list":["post-2743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-doctors","tag-normal","tag-patients","tag-stop","tag-telling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Backfiring Bedside Manner<\/h2>\n
Medical gaslighting<\/h2>\n
Knowing Me Knowing You<\/h2>\n
Say What You Mean<\/h2>\n
Sources<\/h2>\n