An excerpt from Whispers of the Mind: A Neurologist’s Memoir.

I have never been one to seek out medical care, as I have been fortunate to have been in excellent health most of my life. So, when I presented to my GYN for my yearly follow-up, I brought up my first health complaint in the twenty years I had been seeing her, abnormal bleeding. We were colleagues and she knew I was not one to complain, so I am happy to say that I was taken seriously.

She scheduled me right away for an in-office uterine biopsy. Thankfully, it was normal, so I thought no more of it. At least not until the symptoms recurred six months later. Back I went, and this time I underwent another painful biopsy and a pelvic ultrasound.

“I am pleased to tell you,” she said, “that the biopsy results were normal again and there was nothing alarming on your ultrasound, just a benign-looking polyp.” Feeling much reassured, I retreated to work and put it out of my mind.

Six months later, once again symptomatic, I questioned myself before returning. Maybe this was just another normal inconvenience of aging. I was due for my yearly follow-up and I knew my trusted colleague was soon retiring, so back I went and let her know I was symptomatic again. She was hurried, getting ready to close her practice, with plans to leave for an extensive and long-awaited tour of Europe with her husband.

“I am not doing another biopsy,” she said. “There is nothing wrong with you. This is all just stress. I will provide you with a few names of gynecologists in the area for you to follow up with after I leave, but you do not need to be seen for a year.”

Wishing her well in her retirement and thanking her for all her care over the years, I left. Only this time I did not feel so reassured. At this time of my life, I was no more stressed than I had ever been, and I resented her dismissive evaluation that nothing was wrong with me. A nagging whisper in my head told me I was being gaslit and needed to get another opinion. Soon.

Thankfully, my new GYN became alarmed when she saw my prior ultrasound. “You should have undergone a hysteroscopy [scraping of the uterine lining with biopsy] and removal of that polyp a year ago,” she said. “I will get you on the schedule right away.”

After the procedure, I felt reassured when I did not hear from her, as an abnormal biopsy would have been flagged and I surely would have gotten a call. When I showed up for my follow-up with her two weeks later, I relayed a particularly vivid dream I had the night before. I had dreamt that I was sitting in her office, and she was telling me I had a malignancy. We both laughed as she quizzically looked at her computer terminal.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “I do not see your results here. Let me check with my assistant.” A few moments later, as she glanced at the paper results, a look of dread came over her face. “I am so sorry,” she said. “I do not know how this could have been missed. Your biopsy did reveal a malignancy. This should have been brought to my attention immediately.”

I was in the OR within a week for a total hysterectomy. Knowing how long it took to get this far and just how critical it was to diagnose uterine cancer early, I was terrified. The prognosis for endometrial cancer is generally good if caught early, before the cancer has spread through the uterine wall. In these cases, ninety-five percent of women are still alive after five years. When the diagnosis is delayed, as in my case, and the cancer has invaded through the uterine wall, only twenty-five percent of women are still alive after five years.

Only by the grace of God, my cancer was still Stage I. There was no spread. Had I followed the advice of my now retired GYN and not listened to my own fear, I probably would not be here today.

Medical gaslighting is a very real phenomenon. And it is not restricted to male authority figures, as women physicians are guilty as well. It can be as subtle as a smirk, a raised eyebrow, a sigh of impatience, as if to imply that the patient’s genuine suffering is an exaggeration. The doctor’s words, once meant to heal and soothe, become sharp instruments, cutting away at the patient’s confidence and sense of reality.

Studies have shown that gaslighting has led to women, on average, being diagnosed with diseases four years later than men. Whether it is heart disease labeled as anxiety, an autoimmune disorder attributed to depression, or ovarian cysts declared as “normal period pain,” many women’s health issues are more likely to be misdiagnosed or dismissed by doctors as something less serious. Even women doctors are not immune to this phenomenon; I experienced it myself.

Carolyn Larkin Taylor is a neurologist and author of Whispers of the Mind: A Neurologist’s Memoir.