Doctor Mike Varshavski speaks with family medicine physician Dr Bayo Curry about medical gaslighting, patient advocacy and the ways bias and time pressure can shape clinical decision-making. Curry gives a first-person account of a postpartum emergency after a Caesarean section, saying a nurse repeatedly dismissed her concerns because her vital signs appeared normal; she says she was later found to have retained products and internal bleeding requiring transfusion. Curry links the experience to US maternal health disparities, including higher mortality for black women, and describes a follow-up conversation in which the nurse allegedly told her she did not “look” like someone in pain.
The pair discuss how clinicians’ assumptions can affect care, with Curry describing how she asks trainees to name their assumptions before entering a room and to test them against evidence. Curry cites historical and structural factors, including race-based adjustments in obstetric decision tools and slow uptake of new evidence into routine practice. She also recounts a reported case of a woman being turned away while in labour and then delivering in a vehicle soon afterwards.
Curry describes building a free directory of recommended clinicians (clinicianswhocare.com), which she says now contains thousands of names worldwide and has been rebuilt into a searchable form with additional verification. The episode also touches on clinician commentary online, the impact of public health politics on trust in medicine, and concerns that AI tools may widen “information inequality” when better answers sit behind paywalls.
Host Doctor Mike Varshavski says Secretary Kennedy, the head of HHS, is “pretty obvious[ly]” anti-vaccine and claims Kennedy has repeatedly “badmouth[ed] doctors” but has “not” named a pharmaceutical company as a problem. Dr. Bayo Curry agrees and says “Follow the money,” adding that some of Kennedy’s past remarks have been “harmful.”
Read this moment →Dr Bayo Curry says she later confronted the nurse who had reassured her during a postpartum emergency, asking why her concerns were dismissed. Curry says the nurse told her she did not look like someone in pain, and could not articulate what pain should look like beyond saying it was “not” Curry. Curry presents the exchange as an example of how clinicians’ assumptions about pain presentation can affect care.
Read this moment →Dr Bayo Curry alleges some doctors on Reddit mocked people who say they have POTS or Ehlers-Danlos, suggesting they are doing it to be “trendy”. She says a person with POTS found the thread disheartening and worried their own doctor might share those views. Curry argues this kind of scepticism feeds medical gaslighting and growing mistrust in healthcare.
Read this moment →Dr Bayo Curry says she built a free, publicly accessible directory—clinicianswhocare.com—based on crowdsourced positive recommendations for doctors and other clinicians. She claims the list has more than 5,000 names globally and includes written testimonials describing patients’ experiences. Curry also says she recently moved the project from a Google sheet to a new searchable web form with additional verification to deter bots.
Read this moment →